TEAR HISTORY

At the beginning of 2003, four teenage girls noticed that society often overlooks the fact that teens can experience abusive relationships. They had a vision that resulted in their high school's first Awareness Day. They sold handmade bracelets and cut out paper hands for donations. They raised $200.00 and donated the money to a program called ELVES (Empowering the Littlest Victims to Emerge Strong), that helps children in shelters who were previously in abusive homes. At the symposium, they had professionals from UMDNJ come to speak about teen dating violence. About 90 girls, plus teachers, attended and an article was written in the Home News Tribune.

TEAR then went to Women AWARE who began to send out grants for TEAR in hopes that others would believe in them as strongly as they did. Then the four girls attended 40 hours of Crisis Counseling training provided by Women AWARE and were featured on the front pages of the North and South Brunswick Sentinel. Laura joined who then also received 40 hours of training as well and became an important asset to TEAR.