Ms. Gordon works as the Transitional Housing Program Administrator for the Elizabeth Stone House, "a feminist, alternative mental health program in Boston run by women and for women since 1974. The Stone House was founded by a group of former mental patients and other community women to break cycles of violence, disempowerment and institutionalization of women in emotional distress and their children." It is run as a collective. No one person is in charge. Power and responsibility is shared.

Marcia Gordon personally relates to and appreciates the struggles of the women she supports in various programs. Seventeen years ago she was out of hope, in pain, and alone in a prison cell at MCI Framingham, a women's prison in Massachusetts. She didn't know where her three kids were or what was going to happen to them or to her. She had come to the end of a road littered with addiction and prostitution-paths she fell into to escape the pain of early childhood abuse, incest, and later domestic violence, rape and homelessness. In her prison cell, Marcia detoxed from a lifetime of drug use without the aid of medical support; without the support of a community of fellow travelers; without hope for a future. Incarceration, for Marcia, she says, was her saving grace.

In an award-winning documentary film, Strong at the Broken Places, Marcia describes this turning point. "A nun named Sister Jeannette Normandin came to the prison and helped me. She helped me to get underwear; to calm down about my children, and she went to court with me and spoke on my behalf." No one had ever offered Marcia a hand without asking for something in return until this moment. The unconditional love of Sister Normandin undid Marcia completely. She wanted to know, "how does someone come to be like that? Who raised her that she is like that? I want to be like that." Marcia cut a deal with God: "God, if you get me out of prison, I will help women." Today, seventeen years clean and away from that prison cell, in good relationship with her three grown children, this courageous woman says of herself now: "Today, I am a confident black woman with good self-esteem, dignity, honor and integrity."

Ms. Gordon will travel to Washington, D.C. in April to address those gathered and to take part in the 10k Race, 5k Walk/Run to Stop the Silence. She believes in the power of speaking up and making what is hidden, visible. "I realized I could help more women if I told my story openly, without shame. I want everyone who has been sexually abused as a child to know that it happened to me, too!" Marcia will walk with the crowd to the Race finish line bearing this truth in mind, it was not our fault.

"Sexual abuse is very common among the women I work with," Marcia said. "And, it takes time for them to be able to talk about it especially if they have just begun to deal with their memories." She underscores the fact that using drugs and sex is a means to cope and control with issues like child sexual abuse. Ms. Gordon knows what she is talking about. She has lived through a host of impossible circumstances and come out the other side. She bears witness to the reality that it is possible to beat the odds and live the life you want to live. Everyday now Marcia Gordon is to another woman what Sister Normandin was to her. She has become like that.