Retiree takes up the fight against domestic violence

APEX -- For the art aficionados out there, let's get this straight from the start: The Jo Baer of Apex is NOT the modernistic painter whose massive canvasses tend to be nearly blank to the naked eye with perhaps a single line of color.

But the Jo Baer of Apex has her own avant garde vision. Happily married for 54 years to a gentle, sweet man, she wants to educate every woman in Apex - and beyond - about the horrors of domestic violence.

How? And why?

A retired real estate agent from New York's Hudson River Valley, Baer moved to North Carolina 18 months ago. She and her husband, Peter, were on the waiting list to get into Carolina Meadows retirement community. But they didn't want to wait to be close to their daughter and teenage grandson, who live in Cary.

So they rented a house in an Apex subdivision, signed up with a personal trainer - and promptly got bored.

"I needed something to pour myself into," said Baer, who'd been heavily involved in politics and social issues in New York.

Right about the time she was searching for that something, she read about a robbery at the new Interact facility on Raleigh's Oberlin Road. The facility, which provides services for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, also includes living space and after-school care for kids in the program, as well as regular YWCA programs also housed in the building.

Getting mad, and busy

Weeks before the Interact building was to open, someone came in the dark of night and stole the materials for the facility's playground equipment.

Baer was incensed. She sent a check to Interact.

"It was a big check," said Adam Hartzell, Interact's executive director.

Hartzell and others from Interact contacted Baer and invited her to learn more about what Interact does. She was an eager student. She was also appalled to discover how many women she encountered in her new life knew nothing about domestic abuse.

So Baer started doing in Apex what she's always done - bringing people together.

The first house party, modeled after the events she'd held for Barack Obama during his presidential campaign, was held last fall. Hartzell attended with a bit of skepticism, he said. Who would show? How much would be accomplished?

He was stunned at the turnout. More than 50 people gathered in Baer's living room. More impressive to Hartzell was how eclectic the crowd was.

On a recent Sunday, Baer's house party included friends from the gym, her daughter's online network, neighbors, a gal she met at the nail salon and the guy who cleaned her carpet and his partner. The participants have a chance to mingle and then hear short presentations on domestic violence from local activists, police and from Interact itself.

JoAnne Martin calls it "Jo's Six Degrees of Separation."

Martin is part of a group of women who, three years ago, presented a local production of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" to call attention to domestic violence. "It was the first production in our new auditorium," she noted. And it caused quite a stir.

The results

Now Martin is teaming up with Baer to help spread the word about the Monologues (to be presented again this May) and about the larger battle against domestic abuse.

Baer's daughter Kelly Baer said members of her Meet Up group, dubbed the Triangle Honeys, will hold their next meeting at Interact, and members have already begun volunteering.

Even Hartzell, the head of Interact, got a taste of the Baer Six Degrees.

At a house party late last year, he met someone from Family Health International, a group based in Research Triangle Park that does research in family planning and AIDS prevention around the globe. Through that contact, Interact hopes to function as a test site for some of FHI's upcoming research, he said, though he added that he couldn't provide details at this point.

Officer S. Helms with the Apex police said her department has refined its approach to domestic abuse cases in recent years because of the group behind the Monologues, and because of Baer's work.

Helms said she and Police Chief Jack Lewis appreciate the grass roots work of Baer, a tiny woman who turns 74 today, because domestic violence remains a daily challenge. Helms noted that in nearby Cary, all but one homicide in the town's history were domestic.

Hartzell said that, with the worsening economy, even Interact's expanded new facilities are tested daily, though domestic abuse spans all income groups.

"We have 14, 15, 16 families, usually mothers and children, coming to us every day," he said. Last year, the agency served about 43,000 people, all of them new clients.

"When I found out there are not a lot of people in Apex who know about domestic violence, I had to just open my home," Baer said. "I'm going to invite as many people as I can. It's amazing what happens when people come together."