This Mother’s Day, we honor the courage, compassion, and drive of the RESPOND’s founding mothers—a group of women who took their shared vision and turned it into an organization that has saved countless lives.
Honoring the Founding Mothers & Supporters of RESPOND
In the early 1970s, domestic violence was a hidden crisis, rarely talked about. In Somerville, Massachusetts, four women, Pauline Dwyer, Anne Broussard, Jean Marie Luce, and Maureen Varney, refused to accept this silence. Gathering around Pauline’s kitchen table, they began to speak openly about the abuse happening behind closed doors. They opened their own homes to women fleeing violence, creating some of the first safe havens in the area.
In 1974, they formally founded RESPOND, Inc., making it New England’s first domestic violence agency and the second oldest in the nation. Their activism laid the groundwork for domestic violence prevention programs that many organizations emulate today.
A Legacy of Love and Leadership
Pauline Dwyer, one of RESPOND’s founding mothers, was a passionate advocate for women and children. Even after her passing in 2008, her legacy lives on; Somerville honored her by naming the corner of Berkeley and Central Streets “Pauline Dwyer Square.” Her home, once a sanctuary for survivors, became a symbol of what community care and courage can achieve.
Since its founding, RESPOND has served hundreds of thousands of survivors, offering emergency shelter, legal advocacy, youth services, and housing support. RESPOND continues to take on new, unique approaches to creating safer communities, with programs like the SAFER program, a collaboration with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department that supports incarcerated survivors of domestic violence by providing counseling and reentry assistance both during and after incarceration, and the Law Enforcement Partnership Program, which embeds domestic violence counselors within local police departments to enable rapid, trauma-informed responses to survivors within hours of an incident.
This Mother’s Day, Let’s Carry Their Torch
The founding mothers of RESPOND were not just activists, they were mothers, neighbors, and survivors who believed in a better world. Their work reminds us that maternal love can be a powerful force for justice and healing.
This Mother’s Day, we invite you to honor their legacy by supporting RESPOND’s mission. Your donation helps provide shelter, safety, and hope to survivors and their families. Together, we can continue the work these remarkable women began over 50 years ago.
To the founding mothers of RESPOND, your legacy continues to inspire and empower us all.
And to all the mothers who nurture with love, protect with strength, and teach with wisdom, thank you for shaping a brighter, kinder world.
To hear more about the story of these influential women, visit our YouTube channel here.
Happy Mother’s Day!
