HARTFORD, Conn. -- It was just after dawn on Jan. 4, 1999, when Marlene Harris packed up her three children and drove to an East Hartford Stop & Shop, where she picked up a pay phone and dialed 211. Her husband didn’t allow her to use their phone at home.
On the other end of the line was Maria Mojica, then a crisis line operator with the Hartford-based non-profit Interval House for victims of domestic violence. More than 20 years later, Harris can still remember Mojica’s voice as she connected the young mother with their safe house services, where she and her children lived for six weeks as they slowly started to rebuild their lives.
Now, both women work side by side at Interval House, helping victims of domestic violence develop safety plans to escape their own abusers and start over, just like Harris did.
