March 9, 2025 • 12 mins
We spoke with board member James Higgins from "Jane Do No More" about the Jane Doe No More Gala!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning. Thank you for listening to Community Access. It's
my pleasure to have in studio today with me. James Higgins,
he is a board member from Jane Doe No More.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Good morning, Hi, Good morning Ellie.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I'm so happy you could be here today.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
I love Jane Doe No Moore this organization. I have
the pleasure of interviewing Donna at least three times, Donna Palumbo,
who started this organization several years ago. For people who
don't know about Jane Doe No More, give us a
little overview.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah. Absolutely so. The mission of Jane Do No More
is empowering survivors of sexual crimes to find their voice,
advance their healing, and educate others.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Tell me why was it created?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I think the main reason why it was created is
there's a lot of silence that comes with any type
of sexual related crimes, and there's a stigma that it
shouldn't be talked about. And in this case, you should
have a safe place, a place to voice a concern,
a place to express any type of feelings or however
someone might feel, and do it in a way in
and and such that it can help others be inspired
(01:05):
to speak up, act out, and make sure that it
doesn't happen again in the future.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Now, Donna isn't here, I referenced Donna Palumba. Why do
you think that Donna decided to create this?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
One of the most important things and the reason why
it's called Jane Do No More is a lot of
violent and sexual crimes that happen end up and as
a result of death, whether it's something that is extremely painful,
a murder that happened, et cetera, and a lot of
the crimes are ultimately led to unfortunately someone's life being taken.
(01:37):
So the idea around this is that it's okay to
speak up and talk more about those who have been
a victim of a violent crime that is sexual in nature,
and that way that individual is able to not end
up being on the Jane Do list in the future.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
So let's talk about some of the programs that have
then created. Survivors speak Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
So in a survivor's it can happen in a number
of different ways. You can have something that's more small scale,
maybe a couple people for coffee. You can have something
on a larger scale, perhaps on a stage, hundreds thousands,
millions of viewers. There's a number of different ways that
a survivor is able to speak. When a survivor is speaking,
it's important to listen to their story, listen to the
(02:19):
why of what it is that they want to change
about their life, and be able to move forward from
what it was that they were a victim of. Now
when it comes to sexual crimes, for any of the survivors,
it's a very emotionally tolling on the individual to speak
about said crimes that have happened to them personally, and
it allows for anyone in the audience to have a
(02:40):
better understanding that these things should not and should never
be kept secret or silenced in any way. And you
need to talk about the uncomfortableness that happens as it
relates to these crimes and ensure that people have a
way of knowing that there's places like Jane Don't No
More where they're putting together programs or self defense classes
in which you can go attend learn how to defend
(03:02):
yourself and make sure that you can keep yourself as
safe as possible.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
One of the other programs they have is Escape Alive
Survival Skills.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, so in this case, there will be an instructor
who is certified, and it allows you to learn survival
skills that my girlfriend has been able to go to
one of the classes years ago. And when people do
go to these classes, they learn defense mechanisms in which
can allow them to literally escape a violent crime. So
if someone is trying to choke you or hold you down,
(03:32):
this allows for them to know certain maneuvers that they
can do to break free of those and be able
to essentially get away safely.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yes, I've actually taken the class before. It's amazing. Then
there's duty Trump style. Over the years, over the thirty
years that have been a reporter, I spoke with several authority,
state police, local police, and they said that every time
they interviewed a victim, the victim said, I didn't go
with my gut. Something told me not to walk to
(04:01):
that place or do this, and if they had listened
to their gut, they felt like it wouldn't have happened.
So I'm assuming Duty Trump's dell would be along those lines.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, I would agree. You know, It's there's something to
be said about having a gut feeling on anything, and
when you go against your gut feeling, you often find
that hindsight is twenty twenty right, So looking pack, whether
it's more recent or further back, you'll think or say
to yourself, like, I had that gut feeling all along,
why didn't I listen to my gut? And in this case,
(04:33):
by doing that type of training or seminar, it allows
you to kind of hone in on that gut feeling,
because at the end of the day, every single person
has to keep the mindset of being where their feet are.
And if you be where your feed are and you
have a gut feeling of something, it's time to start
the awareness blinders. Take them down or put them up,
and make sure that you can get yourself in a
(04:54):
position to be more aware of what's you know, in
your surroundings, any individuals that are by you, near you,
keep an eye out, and you know, go with that
gut feeling.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And I think that maybe not so much the young
women who are coming up now, but my generation, the
generation before me, we wanted to be polite, you know,
we didn't want to hurt feelings. But when it comes
to your life, it's okay for you to be firm.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Absolutely. Yeah. I think there's a level of politeness that
everyone you know should exhibit politeness, kindness, things that will
be warm hearted in nature. And I envisioned that for
myself too. But if it came down to a someone
trying to violently hurt myself, or if I'm speaking on
behalf of anybody else that's listening to the show right now,
(05:41):
if you're putting yourself in a politeness over safety, that's
never going to work. Your safety is the most important
thing and you should always put safety first.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Right absolutely. Any other programs you want to talk about,
the community outreach or the sexual harassment for program.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, so you know, sexual harassment is something that happens
far more widely and openly and isn't addressed. You often
hear about cases that might happen in the office place
or work environment, but they can help in elsewhere. They
can happen shopping at the mall, or going on a drive,
or a pumping gas like all of these different day
to day scenarios. You know, there's so many people who
(06:23):
have been fortunate not to have any type of sexual
harassment towards them, but the number of people who have
had it is far wider and larger than one may
know about and that's because it's not spoken about. It's
a very uncomfortable topic to talk about. And all of
those people are victims. And that's why when it comes
to Jane Don't No More and John Done No More,
(06:44):
which is our newest addition to the website, it allows
for the victims to kind of voice and talk about
what it is that they see here, experience and so on,
so that way others will hopefully not have to experience
those things or know how to deal with it if
the issue is to come to fruition for them.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
So you mentioned John don't know Moore, what exactly is that?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Sure? So you know a victim is not necessarily only female.
Victims are males as well. And in I think you
kind of said it earlier Ali you said, you know,
you want to put yourself with politeness over anything else,
because that's kind of like a trait that is probably expected.
It's also expected for males to have this very strong,
(07:32):
very masculine, very ultimate never warrior, whatever the cliche terms
are that you know you can think of. There's that
that men don't have these type of crimes against them.
They very much do, and it could possibly be male
to male crimes. It could be female to male crimes,
it could be any of the sorts and vice versa.
(07:54):
I think what's more mainstream in this type of discussion
is typically male to email based crimes, but it can
happen the other way around, or it can happen with
people who you know, maybe relatives, family members, or just
complete strangers.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
So you have a gala that's coming up, We do
yes and people need to RSVP by March tenth, So
let's talk about this gala. It's taking place Saturday, March
twenty second at the water View in Monroe. It's so
beautiful there from six to eleven. What is the theme?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, so you know when it comes to Jane Do
No More. It's fully funded without any type of grants.
So I think that's very important to know that this
is fully funded by fundraisers and other things that we
do from individual outreach, and this particular gala is our
largest fundraiser of the year. So we'd like to have
a theme. This is not going to be your typical
(08:47):
rubber chicken dinner that you'll see for so many other
galas and events that you've probably attended, but this year's
theme is called an evening in Paris, and it's bound
to be a beautiful night with approximately three hundred guests,
so you want to make sure you get your tickets
by them early and get them in advance. And the
best part is one hundred percent of the prof proceeds
excuse me, will benefit Jane donoh Moore, which is doing
(09:11):
all of this incredible work. And I will like to
add the night will feature an open bar, delicious or
dervs of full dinner, live auctions, music, photo booth, and
of course dancing, so it's not going to be your
typical rubber chicken dinner. Bring your comfortable shoes so you
can dance and have a good time because it will
be the perfect mix of fun and philanthropy.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Wonderful. It sounds amazing. I'm a huge fan of doctor Pettit.
I've known him over the years. I absolutely adore him
and the work that they're doing with the Petit Foundation.
And understand they're the presenting sponsor of the gala.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
They are. We are so fortunate and thankful for the
Petit Family Foundation as they have been with us from
the very start, which is fourteen years at this point,
and it's truly amazing that their continued support helps make
this event possible for Jane Dono Moore.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And you have two award recipients that you'll be granting
that evening. Who are they for?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Absolutely? So the awards that we'll be presenting is the
Doctor Henry C. Lee Award, which is an individual who
is honored that exemplifies doctor Lee's passion to advance education
and prevention of sexual crimes as well as advocate and
support survivors to assure that their victims of sexual crimes
are treated with dignity and respect. So this year's recipient
(10:29):
of the twenty twenty five Doctor henryly Cy Award is
Lisa Wexler and she is a woman of many talents,
a probate judge, attorney, advocate, author, public speaker, and is
also the host of The Lisa Rexler Show. Lisa's been
a strong supporter of Jane do Nomore for over a
decade and it's amazing to see that she's going to
be honored that evening.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
And you also have the twenty twenty five Unsung Hero
Award for Joscelyn Momenta.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
We do, yeah, So we're honoring Joscelyn this year. That
award is given to an individual rule who has shown kindness, generosity,
and an unwavering support for Jane Do No More. Jocelyn.
If you're not familiar with Joscelyn Momenta, she's an Emmy
nominated former journalist, philanthropist, and community volunteer. And Jocelyn has
worked closely with Jane do Nomore and her voice to
(11:18):
change podcasts and her work certainly matches the mission of
what Jane Do's No More and her excuse me. Her
involvement has helped raise significant awareness for Jane do Nomore
as well.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
She's a sweetheart. She's a very very nice lady. I'm
speaking with James Higgins. He is a board member from
Jane Doe No More. Their event is Saturday, March twenty second,
from six to eleven at the Waterview in Monroe. Get
your tickets by March tenth. Go to Jandonomore dot org.
You can hear more about the programs, the workshop and
(11:51):
all of the amazing work that they're doing. Thank you
so much for being here today
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Absolutely Ali, thank you for having me, and I'm so
glad to help support Jane Do No Moore and be
on the show on
Good morning. Thank you for listening to Community Access. It's
my pleasure to have in studio today with me. James Higgins,
he is a board member from Jane Doe No More.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Good morning, Hi, Good morning Ellie.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I'm so happy you could be here today.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
I love Jane Doe No Moore this organization. I have
the pleasure of interviewing Donna at least three times, Donna Palumbo,
who started this organization several years ago. For people who
don't know about Jane Doe No More, give us a
little overview.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah. Absolutely so. The mission of Jane Do No More
is empowering survivors of sexual crimes to find their voice,
advance their healing, and educate others.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Tell me why was it created?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I think the main reason why it was created is
there's a lot of silence that comes with any type
of sexual related crimes, and there's a stigma that it
shouldn't be talked about. And in this case, you should
have a safe place, a place to voice a concern,
a place to express any type of feelings or however
someone might feel, and do it in a way in
and and such that it can help others be inspired
(01:05):
to speak up, act out, and make sure that it
doesn't happen again in the future.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Now, Donna isn't here, I referenced Donna Palumba. Why do
you think that Donna decided to create this?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
One of the most important things and the reason why
it's called Jane Do No More is a lot of
violent and sexual crimes that happen end up and as
a result of death, whether it's something that is extremely painful,
a murder that happened, et cetera, and a lot of
the crimes are ultimately led to unfortunately someone's life being taken.
(01:37):
So the idea around this is that it's okay to
speak up and talk more about those who have been
a victim of a violent crime that is sexual in nature,
and that way that individual is able to not end
up being on the Jane Do list in the future.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
So let's talk about some of the programs that have
then created. Survivors speak Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
So in a survivor's it can happen in a number
of different ways. You can have something that's more small scale,
maybe a couple people for coffee. You can have something
on a larger scale, perhaps on a stage, hundreds thousands,
millions of viewers. There's a number of different ways that
a survivor is able to speak. When a survivor is speaking,
it's important to listen to their story, listen to the
(02:19):
why of what it is that they want to change
about their life, and be able to move forward from
what it was that they were a victim of. Now
when it comes to sexual crimes, for any of the survivors,
it's a very emotionally tolling on the individual to speak
about said crimes that have happened to them personally, and
it allows for anyone in the audience to have a
(02:40):
better understanding that these things should not and should never
be kept secret or silenced in any way. And you
need to talk about the uncomfortableness that happens as it
relates to these crimes and ensure that people have a
way of knowing that there's places like Jane Don't No
More where they're putting together programs or self defense classes
in which you can go attend learn how to defend
(03:02):
yourself and make sure that you can keep yourself as
safe as possible.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
One of the other programs they have is Escape Alive
Survival Skills.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, so in this case, there will be an instructor
who is certified, and it allows you to learn survival
skills that my girlfriend has been able to go to
one of the classes years ago. And when people do
go to these classes, they learn defense mechanisms in which
can allow them to literally escape a violent crime. So
if someone is trying to choke you or hold you down,
(03:32):
this allows for them to know certain maneuvers that they
can do to break free of those and be able
to essentially get away safely.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yes, I've actually taken the class before. It's amazing. Then
there's duty Trump style. Over the years, over the thirty
years that have been a reporter, I spoke with several authority,
state police, local police, and they said that every time
they interviewed a victim, the victim said, I didn't go
with my gut. Something told me not to walk to
(04:01):
that place or do this, and if they had listened
to their gut, they felt like it wouldn't have happened.
So I'm assuming Duty Trump's dell would be along those lines.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, I would agree. You know, It's there's something to
be said about having a gut feeling on anything, and
when you go against your gut feeling, you often find
that hindsight is twenty twenty right, So looking pack, whether
it's more recent or further back, you'll think or say
to yourself, like, I had that gut feeling all along,
why didn't I listen to my gut? And in this case,
(04:33):
by doing that type of training or seminar, it allows
you to kind of hone in on that gut feeling,
because at the end of the day, every single person
has to keep the mindset of being where their feet are.
And if you be where your feed are and you
have a gut feeling of something, it's time to start
the awareness blinders. Take them down or put them up,
and make sure that you can get yourself in a
(04:54):
position to be more aware of what's you know, in
your surroundings, any individuals that are by you, near you,
keep an eye out, and you know, go with that
gut feeling.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And I think that maybe not so much the young
women who are coming up now, but my generation, the
generation before me, we wanted to be polite, you know,
we didn't want to hurt feelings. But when it comes
to your life, it's okay for you to be firm.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Absolutely. Yeah. I think there's a level of politeness that
everyone you know should exhibit politeness, kindness, things that will
be warm hearted in nature. And I envisioned that for
myself too. But if it came down to a someone
trying to violently hurt myself, or if I'm speaking on
behalf of anybody else that's listening to the show right now,
(05:41):
if you're putting yourself in a politeness over safety, that's
never going to work. Your safety is the most important
thing and you should always put safety first.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Right absolutely. Any other programs you want to talk about,
the community outreach or the sexual harassment for program.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, so you know, sexual harassment is something that happens
far more widely and openly and isn't addressed. You often
hear about cases that might happen in the office place
or work environment, but they can help in elsewhere. They
can happen shopping at the mall, or going on a drive,
or a pumping gas like all of these different day
to day scenarios. You know, there's so many people who
(06:23):
have been fortunate not to have any type of sexual
harassment towards them, but the number of people who have
had it is far wider and larger than one may
know about and that's because it's not spoken about. It's
a very uncomfortable topic to talk about. And all of
those people are victims. And that's why when it comes
to Jane Don't No More and John Done No More,
(06:44):
which is our newest addition to the website, it allows
for the victims to kind of voice and talk about
what it is that they see here, experience and so on,
so that way others will hopefully not have to experience
those things or know how to deal with it if
the issue is to come to fruition for them.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
So you mentioned John don't know Moore, what exactly is that?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Sure? So you know a victim is not necessarily only female.
Victims are males as well. And in I think you
kind of said it earlier Ali you said, you know,
you want to put yourself with politeness over anything else,
because that's kind of like a trait that is probably expected.
It's also expected for males to have this very strong,
(07:32):
very masculine, very ultimate never warrior, whatever the cliche terms
are that you know you can think of. There's that
that men don't have these type of crimes against them.
They very much do, and it could possibly be male
to male crimes. It could be female to male crimes,
it could be any of the sorts and vice versa.
(07:54):
I think what's more mainstream in this type of discussion
is typically male to email based crimes, but it can
happen the other way around, or it can happen with
people who you know, maybe relatives, family members, or just
complete strangers.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
So you have a gala that's coming up, We do
yes and people need to RSVP by March tenth, So
let's talk about this gala. It's taking place Saturday, March
twenty second at the water View in Monroe. It's so
beautiful there from six to eleven. What is the theme?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, so you know when it comes to Jane Do
No More. It's fully funded without any type of grants.
So I think that's very important to know that this
is fully funded by fundraisers and other things that we
do from individual outreach, and this particular gala is our
largest fundraiser of the year. So we'd like to have
a theme. This is not going to be your typical
(08:47):
rubber chicken dinner that you'll see for so many other
galas and events that you've probably attended, but this year's
theme is called an evening in Paris, and it's bound
to be a beautiful night with approximately three hundred guests,
so you want to make sure you get your tickets
by them early and get them in advance. And the
best part is one hundred percent of the prof proceeds
excuse me, will benefit Jane donoh Moore, which is doing
(09:11):
all of this incredible work. And I will like to
add the night will feature an open bar, delicious or
dervs of full dinner, live auctions, music, photo booth, and
of course dancing, so it's not going to be your
typical rubber chicken dinner. Bring your comfortable shoes so you
can dance and have a good time because it will
be the perfect mix of fun and philanthropy.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Wonderful. It sounds amazing. I'm a huge fan of doctor Pettit.
I've known him over the years. I absolutely adore him
and the work that they're doing with the Petit Foundation.
And understand they're the presenting sponsor of the gala.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
They are. We are so fortunate and thankful for the
Petit Family Foundation as they have been with us from
the very start, which is fourteen years at this point,
and it's truly amazing that their continued support helps make
this event possible for Jane Dono Moore.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And you have two award recipients that you'll be granting
that evening. Who are they for?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Absolutely? So the awards that we'll be presenting is the
Doctor Henry C. Lee Award, which is an individual who
is honored that exemplifies doctor Lee's passion to advance education
and prevention of sexual crimes as well as advocate and
support survivors to assure that their victims of sexual crimes
are treated with dignity and respect. So this year's recipient
(10:29):
of the twenty twenty five Doctor henryly Cy Award is
Lisa Wexler and she is a woman of many talents,
a probate judge, attorney, advocate, author, public speaker, and is
also the host of The Lisa Rexler Show. Lisa's been
a strong supporter of Jane do Nomore for over a
decade and it's amazing to see that she's going to
be honored that evening.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
And you also have the twenty twenty five Unsung Hero
Award for Joscelyn Momenta.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
We do, yeah, So we're honoring Joscelyn this year. That
award is given to an individual rule who has shown kindness, generosity,
and an unwavering support for Jane Do No More. Jocelyn.
If you're not familiar with Joscelyn Momenta, she's an Emmy
nominated former journalist, philanthropist, and community volunteer. And Jocelyn has
worked closely with Jane do Nomore and her voice to
(11:18):
change podcasts and her work certainly matches the mission of
what Jane Do's No More and her excuse me. Her
involvement has helped raise significant awareness for Jane do Nomore
as well.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
She's a sweetheart. She's a very very nice lady. I'm
speaking with James Higgins. He is a board member from
Jane Doe No More. Their event is Saturday, March twenty second,
from six to eleven at the Waterview in Monroe. Get
your tickets by March tenth. Go to Jandonomore dot org.
You can hear more about the programs, the workshop and
(11:51):
all of the amazing work that they're doing. Thank you
so much for being here today
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Absolutely Ali, thank you for having me, and I'm so
glad to help support Jane Do No Moore and be
on the show on
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