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Winner of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund - January 2, 2008
Cathy Salser Honored with $5,000 Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund Award
January 2, 2008

Pacific Palisades, California Resident Wins Cash Award To Expand Therapeutic Art Program For Battered Women


(New York, NY, January 2, 2008) Pacific Palisades, California resident Cathy Salser, 41, will start the new year one step closer to fulfilling her dream of creating a better tomorrow for her community. Cathy was named this week’s winner of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund, a weekly $5,000 cash award program from Avon Products, Inc. to support individuals in their work to empower women. Cathy will apply her award towards expanding her “A Window Between Worlds” (AWBW) therapeutic art program for women victims of domestic violence.

Art expression often allows women to express their feelings and build self-confidence more quickly and effectively than traditional “talk” therapy. Utilized as a tool during the recovery process, art therapy can help female victims of abuse to overcome the feelings of worthlessness and incompetence created by their abusers. The AWBW program is considered by many shelters to be among their most effective tools to help the women reclaim their lives.

Painfully shy as a girl, it was through art that Cathy found a way to understand her feelings, express herself and ultimately connect with others. As a young artist Cathy had a vision to apply her talents in a meaningful way and help make a difference in the lives of other women. In 1991, she left her teaching job and set out on a mission to realize this goal. She reached out to domestic violence organizations across the country, packed her car with art supplies, and drove from California to Massachusetts, stopping in 32 women's shelters along the way. In each shelter Cathy created artwork with the women residents victimized by abuse, and she learned how powerful a tool art could be for women in crisis. “Some women were able to sleep after only one art session,” explained Cathy. “They hadn’t rested soundly in years.”

To sustain the momentum and impact of her work, upon return home to the Los Angeles area Cathy founded AWBW to provide ongoing art programs in local shelters. The program has been a tremendous success, and since its inception AWBW has served thousands of women through programs established at 80 shelters across the nation.

As AWBW has grown, so has demand for the program. Cathy is contacted weekly by shelters asking for help in launching the program, and more than two dozen are still on a waiting list. Thanks to her Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund award Cathy will be able to establish the program at 3 of the 26 shelters on the waiting list, which will reach nearly five hundred additional women. The funds will provide for scholarships for one staff member of each shelter to attend AWBW's two-day Women's Windows Leadership Training and will also cover the cost of art supplies for the three shelters for an entire year. Thanks to Cathy’s successful vision and the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund, hundreds of women will have the invaluable opportunity to take steps to reclaim their lives.

Cathy’s winning application to the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund fell under the category of “Community Service.” Her proposal met the criteria to clearly present unique and achievable objectives to empower women or girls and ultimately improve society. It was selected from a pool of strong contenders by an expert panel of judges, including Suze Orman, America’s most recognized expert on personal finance. “I believe that [many] battered women not only have lost the ability to defend themselves, but they have lost the ability to speak for themselves as well,” noted Orman of Cathy’s proposal. “Art is like a window into one’s soul where a new picture can be drawn of one’s life from the inside out. I like this proposal a lot.”

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