Nonprofit helps domestic abuse survivors in unique, essential way

(KMSP) - Many women escape domestic violence with little more than the clothes on their backs. One local nonprofit aims to help ease that transition.

On Saturday, dozens of women took part in a Pure Barre at the Lake Harriet Bandshell workout to help draw attention to Jammy Peace.

Jammy Peace provides pajamas and undergarments to women who are victims of domestic violence and their children.

“These women didn’t just need some hand-me-downs or toiletries,” said Hilary Davidson, founder of the organization. “They really need something new, something that was their own. Because a lot of times they had nothing that was their own.”

Davidson founded the nonprofit in 2012, after she worked for years as an emergency room nurse at HCMC.

“I saw a lot of women coming in and I realized they’d be heading off to domestic violence shelters with nothing in their possession,” she told Fox 9. “They’ve left home, they can’t go home.”

According to Davidson, Jammy Peace has provided more than 2,500 sets of pajamas and hundreds of undergarments to women and children in need.

“We want survivors of domestic violence to have something new that no one else has had, that no one else has worn,” said Davidson. “Because it’s pajamas, it’s got that sense of security and safety.”

Davidson remembered one set of pajamas in particular made a huge difference for a quiet little boy in a shelter in St. Paul.

“The next morning, the director of the shelter walked in and this little boy, who hadn’t said a word to anybody since his arrival, went running up to her, jumped into a warrior stance and said, ‘I’m Michaelangelo!’” Davidson recalled. “Those were the first words he had spoken since his arrival.”

Davidson hopes her organization will continue to grow, and draw attention to the issue of domestic violence in the metro and across the state.

“It’s something very small, but when you have nothing, something small means everything.”