Lisa Chernick’s days as a newly-wed back in Chicago were supposed to be happy days.

 

But they weren’t. 

 

She experienced domestic abuse, threats and alienation from her spouse. She finally realized her life was hers to save - and she did so.

 

She feels the experience has put her on a steady course to lead Rivers of Hope, the Sherburne-Wright domestic abuse advocacy group.

 

Chernick, who took over as executive director of Rivers of Hope earlier this month, remembers  she - herself - became a victim of abuse and the terror it caused for 12 years in her life.

 

She talked about those experiences over lunch this week, just a half-block away from the ROH office, off Broadway Street in Monticello.

 

At the urging of a friend, she finally pulled the plug on their failed marriage and escaped with their young son.

 

“Three years (of legal proceedings) and $68,000 later, it was a divorce,” she said. 

 

And her life could begin again.

 

Chernick knew the abuse was happening in her marriage; she just didn’t recognize it as “wrong enough” to stop it.

 

 “You justify the behavior,” she said. “It was a hear-no-evil, see-no-evil world.”

 

Remarkably, she saw the abuse coming on during their seven-year courtship prior to the marriage.

 

She remembers her husband threatening her as she held her son close to her,  awaiting a court date. He was angry that she had retained her maiden name; not taken his.

 

She remembers wearing a sweatshirt on a hot day to cover an arm full of bruises from a beating.

 

She remembers her husband’s response to her question about their being a couple.

 

“You’re not a partner,” she remembered him saying. “You’re a paycheck.”

 

Life wasn’t so idyllic inside that picturesque white Colonial in Crystal Lake, outside Chicago.

 

She and her husband had great neighborhood status, held big parties, had great paying jobs.

 

But the marriage was decayed.

 

 

She is overseeing an office of six persons, four being field advocates, attending to requests for help across Sherburne and Wright counties.

 

Last year, the organization assisted an estimated 950 persons with information and advocacy to help them in domestic abuse situations.

 

Advocates regularly visit up to a dozen schools in Wright and Sherburne counties, holding open door hours. ROH is involved from the start in domestic abuse cases, as investigating officers notify victims of their services.

 

ROH last year invested in its first safe house to provide housing to families fleeing abuse.

 

Household furnishings, clothing and miscellaneous items are provided families, and in December, the organization collected and distributed Christmas gifts to about three dozen families dealing with abuse. Gift cards and gas cards are also part of the program.

 

“We need to continue to grow, to strengthen, to provide education, starting with youth,” she said. “We need to help young women see the ‘red flags’,”

Advocacy in domestic abuse cases means ROH clientele is assured the help to see their way through dark times, Chernick says.

 

“We need to serve as the trauma team on current cases. And we need to have a communication movement. We need to be the educators.”

 

And regarding her role as chief grant writer and funding solicitor for the organization?

 

“We need to be the convenor of like-minded groups.”

 

   She spoke again of her first failed marriage and its trauma.

 

“Will we be a victim, or a survivor?” she said. That will be the message for the people knocking on the door at ROH.

 

Chernick has held many executive and strategist roles, most recently as a nonprofit strategist for LB2, Inc., of Chicago, Boy Scouts of America of Central Minnesota, Sartell and an earlier position as regional director of their Midwest-Northeast-Pacific regions; American Marketing Association Foundation, Chicago; and positions with the National Osteoporosis Foundation, National Restaurant Association and National Alzheimers Association.

 

ROH can be reached at 763-295-3433, or riversofhope.org