Anna Gruel: Empowering Victims, Raising Awareness, and Healing Through Art

On this episode of the We Share Podcast, Alex and Julie sit down with Anna Gruel, board president of the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Center in Idaho Falls. Anna shares her insights into the critical work being done to support victims in Eastern Idaho, covering six counties. They explore the challenges faced by those impacted by domestic violence, including children and men, and discuss the center’s efforts to provide essential services such as forensic interviews, advocacy, and collaborations with law enforcement.

The conversation dives into the complexities of why many victims struggle to leave abusive situations, highlighting the mental and financial manipulation that often keeps them trapped. Anna explains how the center addresses these issues and emphasizes the role of community support and empathy in empowering victims to break free from dangerous environments.

Adding a creative twist, Anna shares exciting news about an upcoming art auction featuring 152 donated pieces from the estate of the late Mary “Betty” Williams, including works by renowned artists like Salvador Dali. This unique auction series aims to raise funds to support the center’s mission and bring greater awareness to the cause.

The episode concludes on a reflective note as Anna, an experienced yoga practitioner, shares the importance of mindfulness practices—such as breathwork, presence, and stillness—in healing trauma and finding personal peace. Join Alex and Julie for this insightful episode to learn more about the center’s initiatives and discover ways to support this vital cause in your community.

Transcript

Take a breath. Be present in a way from that distraction. Just breathe. The breath always takes you to that present moment. So when you. Even if in your own mind's eye, you're saying to yourself, I am breathing in, I am breathing out. Everything else is gone. You're in that present moment right then and there, and you can just allow that stillness so that you can allow your inner wisdom to just shine.

Today on the We Share podcast, we're joined by Anna Gruel, board president for the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Center in Idaho Falls.

Welcome to the We Share podcast. I'm Julie. I'm Alex. We share ourselves and we provide a platform for others to share. We believe everyone has a purpose and a story to tell. And we're back on the We Share podcast. I'm Julie and I'm Alex, and we're going to talk about one of the most important concepts and problems. And something that we can never not address enough.

And until. Yeah, on today's podcast. So why don't you introduce our guest, Alex? I would be so happy to introduce our guest, the wonderful Anna Grau. She is the board president for the DV Saac here in town in Idaho Falls. But she's so much more than that. She is, like, definitely philanthropist, a golf cart, a mother, a mother to so many and a friend to all.

Thank you so much for having me on the show. You're so welcome. Okay, first off, we gave the acronym tell us what that is. DV SAC stands for the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Center. We have been opened for over 40 years and we are on Memorial Drive here in Idaho Falls. Yep. Wonderful. And who does it serve in East Idaho is at regional.

Is it just Idaho Falls? And how do you serve people? So we serve in Idaho Falls, but also surrounding areas. We actually are in six different counties. And so I did not know that yes, we have calls from salmon. We, get calls also from Jackson, Wyoming. We partner up there other sexual assault center and child advocacy centers, too, here in southeast Idaho.

But, when the load is heavy, we come in. And so we work with Jefferson County. We work in Teton County. Fremont County. So, yes, we have advocates and we will go to see them or they'll come in and see us. So incredibly important for those rural areas because they just can't, you know, bring together the resources that are needed in a situation like that or the volunteers or that.

Yes, the help, the the necessity. So I know the need is astronomical. There are always women in need. I do a true crime podcast. I tell people all the time, I could do a daily podcast on domestic violence and child abuse, if that's how prevalent it is in 2024. So the need is obviously present here. How do you help people in need?

There are several ways that we help people that are in need, and these people range from all ages. So we are a child advocacy center. And so with children, a lot of times we work with law enforcement. We cannot do what we do without the help of law enforcement. So a lot of times people are in crisis. And so law enforcement actually goes into the home.

And so when that happens then we are contacted. And so we have 24 hours where, law enforcement can actually bring somebody in and we can, help with forensic interviews, sexual assault nurse examiners, we have them so that they can also do a sexual assault examination. We have nurses who can, do those examinations on, on children.

So pediatrics and then on adults too. So we, have phone calls that come in of of people. Now, I know that you probably think it's just women who are in domestic violence cases. No, there's there's men. There are. And we have actually seen some cases with domestic violence. Of course, we know that the the statistic for men is 1 in 6.

For boys it's 1 in 6 will be sexually abused. And for girls it's 1 in 4. This is obviously a problem across the board. I think maybe in past times we just stereotype that it's just female. And I would say even maybe lower socioeconomic female. And that is just not an accurate form. Absolutely not. Yeah. It doesn't discriminate against yeah.

Assault isn't it isn't a respecter of persons. It can happen to anyone. Also, I was mentioning this to somebody the other day as it becomes that there are same sex relationships, you also have to understand that assault happens in relationships as well, which I believe is where you have more men become vulnerable in those situations and we can't look past that.

They need our help also. Yes. And our mission is to provide services to victims of violent crime. And we're trying to create safer homes by educating people. The question is, why didn't she leave? Right? Oh, yeah. I think people say that all the time. I on my true crime podcast, people say, well, if she would have just left, this wouldn't have happened.

So hard to leave. Not. And it never, ever gets easy. It's hard enough to just go get a house together with a partner. How are you going to come up with the funds or money to get a place on. Especially if there's children involved. So what happens is the batterer is not only abusing the, the, the mother or the children.

They. Okay, so why won't she leave? It is because he is making her think that she is less than. He controls finances in so many situations. They control the finances. They do what they can to so that the that the woman does not have any relationship with family. Like they shut them out. Isolate them. Isolate them. Yes.

Thank you. That worked. Well and I think it's true. It's true. You lose your friends and family. They, they chip away slowly. You until you're like that's all you know. And that is what the batterer has the, victim believe that they are less than. And they get them to the point where they're not self sufficient, and so they just don't feel that they can leave.

So if they need help from your services, how would they get Ahold of you? How can they get in touch with you? Because the reality is sometimes your phone is being monitored. Sometimes your internet searches are being monitored. So there needs to be a safe way. And I'm sure like there's lots of ways, like maybe they can show up at the center or they can schedule via text or something like that.

So what are the various ways that they can get Ahold of in case the batter is monitoring what they're doing? So the phone number that they can call is (208) 529-4352. We are located at 1050 Memorial Drive here in Idaho Falls. So they can come in and or they can call, you know, it's interesting people know that I, affiliated with the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Center and their business owner friends of mine or people that are in HR, and they ask me, Anna, I have somebody and who's working with me who might need some help with domestic violence.

So it's just really neat to see that, places of work are reaching out to me. And I'm just giving them the phone numbers and everything, because our advocates there are amazing. Our staff, we can't do what we do without them. And we have people that have been with us for over 20 years. We have some new people here too.

And, yeah, we provide Spanish services too. Oh, that's such an important thing. Yes, absolutely speaks volumes to our community that they do reach out to you, that people do want to get involved and they know there's other things coming up that you're doing. So that I want you to make sure we share those. Yes. You want to say hi to that like I do that coming up, I do, you know, we deal with a lot of sad things.

But a lot of times, though, too, we find that victims can hope, can overcome this crisis and they're stronger. And there's some stories that are just incredible of of of people who survived this. So when we get a lot of negative stuff, there's also room for some positive and, early that this year, we received an in-kind donation from the Gary and Mary Betty Williams estate, and, it was 152 pieces of art.

And. Yes, Mary and Gary lived here in Idaho Falls for many years. And, so this art, when Mary passed away, it was supposed to go to her daughter, and her daughter lives in Georgia. And Janet just said, look, it's too far away. I don't know what I'm going to do with all of that art. Is there a nonprofit there in Idaho Falls that we can help and, I'm just it's really important for me to, to to tell you the story about this because it's it's a community of people that have come together to put this together and to make it possible.

So Nancy Berkman, really good friends with Betty. And I say Betty because she she never went by Mary. Her name is Mary Elizabeth, but she went by Betty. But, Gary and Betty were really good friends with Nancy, and so, so Miss Bergmann just said, hey, send it to the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Center. So we received a phone call on Friday, and, it was to advise us that we had all of this arts that had been donated to us, and we had seven days to go pick it up.

Wow. So it rolled fast. It happened really quick. And mind you, my husband and I were getting ready to leave the country to go to Croatia. Know this was to Africa. Oh, okay. So like last February. So this happened so, so in January when we got the call end of January and, we were leaving for Africa and I think it was February 8th actually.

And so all of this just happened so quickly. And, there's another board member, Christy Ball. She's fantastic. When all of the art came through, I just reached out to the board and I said, hey, we have some art that's been gifted to us, and who would like to take this on it? Come. Come to find out.

Christy has a degree in art history. And so she said, I'll do it. And then our vice president, Alisa, she said, hey, I can help you. So we thought, okay, let's catalog this art, let's get it go picked up. So we went, we did this walk through. And as we're walking through Betty's house, we see all of these pieces of art.

And I have to tell you guys, I did not know who Salvador Dali is. Do you know who Salvador Dali I am? Okay, I do know, and I've tiny pieces like the where the clocks are like melted down. Yes, I've seen it. And in the museum. Okay. When I traveled Europe. Well, there are some pieces from Salvador Dali and, there's this other artist, Linda Lynn Kempf.

And, you'll have to forgive me. I can't remember his first name. I believe he's Hungarian and Takei pieces. But we walked through this house and there's all these beautiful pieces of art, and we didn't know how many pieces were going to be there. We just walked in, and then it's room after room of it and come to find out, through Nancy Bergman.

They went on trips together. And so when Betty made it, hobby to buy art, and there were some times where they were bidding against each other to best friends and everything, just bidding against each other. But Gary too, was on the trips and anyhow, it was just a collection of it. And so we, we, we go in, we do this walk through, we have the mover with us and we just say, okay, fine, we made the appointments.

They came in, they picked it up and we cataloged it and it's in storage. And anyhow, we put it aside and October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. So we're purple. I'm wearing purple. You are. You look stunning in it, by the way. Thank you. We will wear purple on Wednesday when the straw. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Awesome.

So, we had reached out to, the Colonial Theater and to the car gallery, and we had asked if we could be put on the calendar somehow just to display some of this art. We had no idea what we're going to display or anything, but we just thought, you know what? October's Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Let's see if we can get some art displayed there.

So now I'm getting ready to go to Croatia and I get a call. Hey, we're just confirming to make sure that you can take this date. And, October 15th is the date, and, we're holding one our first of three fundraisers. So what do you do with 152 pieces of art that been donated to you so generously?

And beautiful pieces. You have art auction. Yeah, a valuable art auction. Very valuable art auction. And, we're divvying it up by three shows. And so our first show is October 15th. It's on a Tuesday from 5 to 8 p.m.. We will be serving, beverages. Alcoholic non-alcohol wine, champagne, some small bites. It's on the second floor.

It will be a silent auction. And, just wanted to invite everybody to that. I think also, for somebody who doesn't do auctions all the time, the silent auction is a great way to insert yourself because it's less pressure. You don't have to act so immediately. And you can, what a great idea. So it's at the car gallery?

Yes, it's on the second floor. Okay. And that's downtown. I have an invitation on there. Yeah, it is a street. Yeah, I street. Yeah, yeah, that's why I said car gallery. Because see a RR for our listeners. Because it would be easy for them to look up. It's beautiful. That's a beautiful building to have this in. And what a great way to just go and spend an evening and chat with people.

And at a minimum, look at the beautiful pieces at a at a very charitable end. Bid on one and help me with, yeah, leave with something beautiful and help the domestic violence center. Well, there's a couple of other ways to also help, so. Oh yeah. Just spending the evening there. Is we will be holding a raffle. So our invitation, I'm going to share it with you all, but it's a Peter Max piece.

And the name of the piece is an angel with a heart or angel with hearts. Oh, that's beautiful. And we chose this piece because it has purple in it because of the awareness color for domestic violence. And so, this piece is retail value at $2,500. It's, Siggraph it's in a collection. It's number 30 is 350. And, we are selling raffle tickets.

So these raffle tickets will be sold at all three of the art fundraisers. And the winner will be drawn on the final one, which will be sometime next spring or summer for the for the final one. And we have the dates for the others or not yet. We're still in talks about that, but it's looking like January for our second one.

Okay, do you know what I love about that too, that you've spread this over several months, is that maybe you go on October 15th and you're seeing how beautiful these pieces are, but you're wanting to save up a little bit, or maybe January will be a better time to purchase or something like that. And so you can then know what flavor for this, because I think people buy and and get pieces that have similar tones and things to them.

So you'll know what you're looking at. Show up in January, and then maybe it's a better time for you to bid. And what a great idea to put some months between these, because it really allows people to plan ahead and know what kind of event they're they're attending and how awesome that is. Well, in the community has just been great about supporting us.

By the way, I can't leave without thanking the good company broker. Yeah. Group that get co. Yeah. Yes. They do great things. I was sharing with Tyler and just putting this all together has just it's been seamless. I just I can't even stress about it because the moment I start thinking about how is this going to be pulled off, things just show up.

Yeah. It's just happen. They're very skilled. Yeah. Playing and getting things done. Yeah. When I sat down with him, my intent was just to ask him to invite his network to this event. And he said, how would you feel if we sponsor the event says that. And so they are our generous sponsor and they are taking care of, Kimberly Bronson.

Oh, yes. Center. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she's fabulous extraordinaire. Yeah. This team they've just taken, it's going to be a beautiful thing. And I just could never have imagined that this in-kind donation of this beautiful art is extending into a trilogy of support, and like, it will generate so much more money. How much do I love what you just said?

Trilogy of support that is that is like, perfectly sad. Because, you know, my day job, I'm on the radio. We talk a lot about how horrible this country or this world is and all the strife and politics and everything, and I repeatedly say what a great community we live in. And when we have you or somebody else on or we just finished our 911 trifecta, it is.

It is truly so beautiful to see the people in this area gather together and help one another. It's an awesome place to live and this is why I serve now. Alex, you give me too much credit when you call me a philanthropist, I think of you. I was like, I'm a community advocate. So my responsibility is to build and serve the community that I want to live in.

Right. And so I've served on other nonprofit organizations, but this one really speaks to me. And, there are so many wonderful organizations out there. People ask me all the time, how do I get involved as a volunteer? And so I ask them, what is it that you love? What is it that you're passionate about? Is it education?

Is it is it pets? Is it? Yeah, whatever. Whatever it is to do that. Because most likely there will be a nonprofit that you can give your time to and it can be as simple as volunteering your time or serving on a board or volunteering. You know, I sell concessions over at Mountain America's Center for the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Centers.

I know I went to a wayside no, but that's true. Oh, it's so true, though, because I think sometimes people will listen to this and they'll be like, well, I don't have $24. I have that much time. Yeah, or I don't have time. But it there, when everybody does a little piece of the puzzle, it turns into a beautiful tapestry of amazing generosity.

And you meet amazing people. I know I've from working on boards and I just I did what you did. You know, first it was like a symphony fundraiser, but I got the opportunity to meet so many people that my life still intersects with. And then over ten years on this key club board, which is now no longer which is sad.

So it's probably time for me to pivot. And that's just it. It could be another, you know, something that I love to help grow. So when we were just talking about how this community right support said each other. Right. And it's because of people getting together and giving their time and serving in nonprofits or even for their kids.

Right. And sports events and, and sports teams. But it's a great way to get involved. And. Yeah, and we all can do something. Yes we can, we can. So you're invited everyone listening like get involved, do something. And if you're here on Tuesday, you know where you should be. The car gallery. Yes. For a beautiful night I'm sure.

Yes. We always ask our guests to share with us, maybe just a little, like, little nugget of life advice. And it doesn't necessarily have to be centered around this event or around domestic violence, but it can be. But mostly what you would like to share with our listeners about the work you've done and, and just how do we help each other?

Yeah, even just a message from a girl like, yeah, from you, from your heart. And I should mention this to I cannot believe I didn't say you're a Yogi. She's like an amazing Yogi. Like so I'm. Which also just helps people because it helps people. Yeah. So when you ask me, what can I say? What can I offer?

I'm coming from that school of yoga. Perfect. Yeah. Take a breath. Be present. Be fully present. Get away from that distraction. Just breathe. I love it. You think that's so simple? But there is, a lack of something in this world, and I think it's the ability to be still. And I try to choose either a word or a phrase.

Like my phrase for last year was lean in. I wanted to lean into the things that I was passionate about. I know I'm a little early in October, but I was thinking, what do I need to do more of? And I think my phrase in January is going to be still. And because I don't think we've honed that quality anymore.

And so that taking that chance to breathe is truly a way to center ourselves again. So you think it's simple? I think it's amazing. It's it's simple, but it's hard to like, what's the first thing you do when you're nervous? Are you stop breathing. Right. We hold our breath, tense up. Yeah. And so breathing is one way you can just connect immediately with your present self.

Well, the breath always takes you to that present moment. So when you even if in your own mind's eye, you're saying to yourself, I am breathing in, I am breathing out, everything else is gone. You're in that present moment right then and there, and you can just allow that stillness so that you can allow your inner wisdom to just shine.

I know it sounds very Yogi, but. Well, and it's it's something to do with domestic violence too. When you are with people, I'm going to say not just them, but people in trauma. One of the first things you'll tell them to do also is breathe. Like, let's breathe, calm your breathing, because usually there's anxiety and, you know, I was just thinking, I spent the weekend with my little two year old grandson.

And isn't that the first thing we do with little kids to get them to calm down? Oh, yeah, you ask them to. Okay, okay, let's take a breath. All right. And you, once you talk them down on an emotional level, then you can reason with them. It's so true. At so just from the time you're little till you're 51 like me, an ally, it's like you just.

It's something that's necessary. There's so many songs with breathe or just breathe, you know, brilliant wisdom to share. Thank you. You welcome. Thanks for joining us today on the We Share podcast. If you've loved what you've heard, please give us a five star rating. Tell your friends and share this show. You can also follow us for recipes, lifestyle and fashion tips, book reviews and more on our podcast.com.

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