Tell us a little about yourself, and what 1000 Mothers to Prevent Violence does.
My name is Lorrain Taylor. I am the founder and CEO of 1000 Mothers to Prevent Violence. We are a 501 ( c) 3 nonprofit organization serving Oakland, the Greater
Bay Area and beyond.
Why did you start this organization?
In the year 2000, my 22-year-old twin sons Albade and Obadiah Taylor (6-8-1977 to 2-8-2000)) died tragically of homicide while working on a car. And because of that event, I ended up having a nervous breakdown. In 2007, I went back to school to work on another Master’s degree to try and prepare myself for the workforce, got a job at the VA, and was overcome by grief again. My doctor told me that I could not do mental health and that I needed to take anti-depressants. I was devastated. So I told my doctor, I will work if I have to work for free. After I began walking and praying instead of taking medication, I started 1000 Mothers to Prevent Violence. Not for financial gain, but just to prove to myself I wasn’t going to lie there on my sofa and die in my grief; moreover, I had another son to live for and there were other mothers like myself who needed practical help.
What kind of work is your organization doing?
1000 Mothers to Prevent Violence mission is to ease the traumatic impact of violence on homicide and crime victim-survivors families and friends by providing ongoing compassionate support & services. We started in 2007 with a support group called COPE. I named it COPE, which is the acronym for the Circle Of Prayer plus Empowerment.. It’s for anyone in spite of religious or political affiliation; it doesn’t matter whether the person is a perpetrator, a victim or a survivor. COPE is open to anyone who is dealing with grief-related stressors. We also provide advocacy, mental health referrals, outreach and prevention services.
What are the challenges to your organization’s work?
Our current challenge is finding funding. We realized that we do need funding to stay afloat. And I’m not the best person to raise money. So that’s one of the challenges we do face. We have a temporary space to work but as we are expanding there is a need for more permanent space; we also need technical support and volunteers to help with our annual events.
The future challenge has been to develop a strategic plan for fundraising; because, we love to give and help people heal.
What areas of growth do you see?
We are planning to offer virtual grief support by way of zoom or go to meetings or whatever platform that our mothers are comfortable with. Due to the high price of gasoline and because some people are just not physically able to attend the group, we are going to expand COPE to include virtual and informal peer support groups. That’s one of the plans we have, we also want to focus more on our youth survivors.
We call our youth program Project SSMART which was a grief support group for kids – where we would offer them field trips to the former Oakland A’s & the S.F. Giant’s games; or a summer camp to help them better cope with their grief.
What are your future projects?
We plan to resume COPE grief support, our Mourning Mothers Walk 4 Healing and the PURPLE Gala in 2023. We have been pretty much on hold due to the COVID pandemic.
Thank you for speaking with us. How can people get involved?
You can contact us at our phone number 510-581-0100 and or send an email to 1000mothers.cope@gmail.com or lorraintaylor@aol.com. You can also contact us through our website 1000mothers.org to make a donation..
