Butterfly murals in Marysville raise awareness around domestic violence
MARYSVILLE — A nonprofit is aiming to brighten people's days while also raising awareness in Marysville about a dark subject: domestic violence.
They're doing it with butterfly murals. They're grabbing peoples' attention and forcing them to ask questions.
"There was a day I questioned whether my daughter was alive or not, and I drove three towns over to knock on the door because she hadn't answered for three days," said Angela Butler, a mother of a domestic violence survivor.
Butler feared for the worst. Her friend's daughter, Liv, had just been murdered by an abuser, but thankfully, Butler's daughter made it out of the relationship alive.
Now she wanted to do something to help others.
"I felt like my daughter survived, her daughter didn't," Butler said. "So I felt blessed my daughter was a survivor. I got involved with Liv On," she said.
Liv On wasn't meant to be a foundation. It was meant to be a one-time fundraiser to help the family of a young woman who was murdered in a domestic violence incident.
Like a butterfly's transformation, the loss of Liv inspired something beautiful, and thus, the Liv On Foundation was created.
"We just wanted to raise money for funeral costs or anything the family might need, but that opened up a lot of talk around domestic violence and we realized we need some help around here," said Anna Shefrin, the director of the foundation. "There's not a lot of support in the Yuba-Sutter area."
The foundation receives daily phone calls and serves as a support group with crisis counselors and training classes. Their latest efforts include a mural project, and they're painting butterflies to represent transformation and living on.
"It's to raise awareness," Shefrin said. "We really want people to know we're here, and this gets people asking questions."
The butterflies are being painted by local high school students as a way to involve the community.
There are two murals so far, but more could soon be popping up around town.
"The Liv On Foundation hopes to bring beautiful things out of something ugly and yucky," Butler said.
Another butterfly mural is in the works on Plumas Street in Yuba City.