YWCA Dayton will honor domestic violence survivor Beth Stelling as its Marsha Froelich Survivor Award winner at its Voices Against Violence Breakfast and Voices Against Violence Luncheon on Thursday, Oct. 10, at the Schuster Center Wintergarden, 1 W. Second St. in downtown Dayton.
The breakfast is from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.
The luncheon is from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Registration is free at ywcadayton.org.
In its 17th year, the YMCA’s annual Domestic Violence Awareness Month event was previously known as the YWomen Breakfast.
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Now in its eighth year, the Marsha Froelich Survivor Award honors "women who embody Froelich's spirit of survivorship, resilience and generosity," according to a press release.
Froelich died in 2011. She served as vice president of development at YWCA Dayton from 2000 to 2006.
"This award recognizes a woman whose words and actions serve to exemplify, inspire, set an example, and celebrate the spirit of a survivor who has overcome the odds and continued on an amazing journey," Shannon Isom, YWCA Dayton president and CEO, said in a statement.
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Raised in Oakwood, Stelling revealed her personal story about domestic violence on Instagram in 2015 and has used it in her stand-up routine.
In December 2015, she wrote the following, according to The Independent and other news organizations:
"I wanted to move on and forget because I didn’t understand. I don’t want revenge or to hurt him now, but it’s unhealthy to keep this inside because my stand-up is pulled directly from my life. It’s how I make my living. My personal is my professional. That is how I’ve always been; I make dark funny.
So now I’m allowing this to be part of my story. It’s not my only story, so please don’t let it be. If you live in L.A., you’ve already started to hear my jokes about this and I ask you to have the courage to listen and accept it because I’m trying.
Already since talking about this on stage, many women have come to me after shows asking me to keep doing it. Men have shown their solidarity.
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An ex-girlfriend of this ex-boyfriend came to me and shared that she experienced the same fate. Then there was another and another (men and women) who shared other injustices at his hand that shattered my belief that I was an exception.
I am not alone; unfortunately I'm in a line of smart, funny women who experienced this from the same man in our L.A. comedy community.
I couldn't stay in our relationship waiting for it to happen again & I won't keep it a secret any longer so that a future woman has a fair chance of avoiding it.
I don't have all the answers. I'm doing my best to work through this. There are more stories out there from men & women and they don't all involve getting raped by a stranger in an alley. Many are crapes (the coziest kind) in the comfort of your own bed."
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Stelling was named “Best Stand-up Comedian in Chicago” by “The Chicago Reader.”
The graduate of Oakwood High School and Miami University has appeared on “CONAN,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “Chelsea Lately.” Her most recent stand-up special is part of “The Standups” on Netflix.
Stelling has written for "I Love You America" with Sarah Silverman on Hulu, Judd Apatow's HBO series "Crashing," and the 2019 feature film Good Boys.
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