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On Christmas night 1990, Pam Stack was stabbed, strangled, beaten and left for dead by her estranged husband. Upon her recovery, Pam has made it her life’s work to ensure that every woman has a safe home in which to live. Once a victim of domestic violence, Pam has become a fearless advocate for battered women and one of the country’s leading advocates for domestic violence victims. Hers is a mission without end: Every nine seconds, someone commits an act of violence committed against a woman.
To combat domestic violence, Pam created the Save A Life Campaign to provide pro bono services and advocacy for victims of domestic violence. She has overseen the collection of over 200,000 cell phones throughout the United States to provide victims of domestic violence the means not only to call for help in times of crisis, but also to save the lives of their endangered children. This initiative has lead to similar programs in twenty other states and to legislation in Miami-Dade County. She also created the Surviving Through Inner Strength Luncheon and Awards Ceremony to honor survivors, raise awareness of the epidemic of violence against women, and to raise emergency relief funds for victims. To date, Pam has raised money and in-kind donations exceeding $500,000, benefiting local emergency shelters and agencies. The event includes providing scholarship funds for survivors and their children. But Pam’s efforts don’t end here. She secures safe housing at local hotels and motels that do not charge for their services, and has lobbied family and friends to open their homes to women in need. Pam often takes threatened families into her own home. Her outreach project has a minivan––stocked with blankets, towels and toiletries––ready to pick up victims at any time, day or night, and get them to safety. In the most extreme cases, Pam has worked with law enforcement to help victims change their identities and relocate them and their children to safety, sometimes even arranging for them to leave the country.
A fearless supporter of battered women, Pam responds immediately to their needs: She takes her own crime scene photos; teaches law enforcement, health care professionals and many others how to help victims; helps victims not only in seeking immediate shelter, but also through the myriad paths toward attaining protection via law enforcement and the courts. Her efforts have not gone unnoticed. At the personal invitation of former Attorney General Bob Butterworth, Pam gave the keynote address to the Florida Governor, the Cabinet, the Florida Supreme Court and guests during Victims Rights Week in Tallahassee. Additionally, Pam has won acclaim for her work, including awards granted in her honor by Miami-Dade County and Governor Jeb Bush. She does not rest on her achievements. Pam’s latest initiatives include, “Student Advocates for Victim Empowerment” (S.A.V.E.) project, founded to educate pubic school students about teen dating violence and ways to prevent it, escape it, and overcome it.
Once a victim of domestic abuse, Pamela Stack has become an eloquent and fearless advocate of women and their families trapped in the cycle of violence. She has helped victims through the legal system, obtaining restraining orders, accompanying victims through the trials of their abusers. She has secured the support of business community to help women move into safe, affordable housing. She has even arranged for movers and security to extract women from violent homes in the middle of the night in order to get them to safety. She saves lives of battered women––helping victims attain not only sanctuary and justice, but also the most basic human right: a life of dignity free from harm or fear. She does all of this––and still more community-oriented projects––while caring for her elderly, disabled mother and working a full time job in the non-profit world. Recently married to her partner of the past fifteen years, whom she helped train as an advocate for domestic violence victims, Pamela Stack lives the life she advocates: “Every woman has the right to live and live her life in safety. That is my mission in life – to make sure women and their children are safe.”
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