'It ends and starts with us,' Boston mother Ruth Rollins turns sons' tragic stories into hope
BOSTON - Ruth Rollins has endured a lifetime's worth of pain - twice. So she's channeled her grief into action, creating an organization that helps women like her.
In 2007, her 21-year-old son Danny was murdered in Boston and the case has never been solved. He died one week after her other son was incarcerated for gun violence.
"He was very caring. He loved family. He had a dry sense of humor," Rollins said of Danny.
"Still grieving both children. I was still suffering in silence because of the stigma and shame of having children or a child that caused harm in the community," Rollins said.
And in this dark place, she created a program called We Are Better Together Warren Daniel Hairston Project, named after her Danny. The program works with families that are impacted by gun violence on both sides - mothers who have lost their children to homicide and incarceration.
"In order to really do intervention and prevention, what we do to one side, we have to also do to the other," she said.
We Are Better Together consists of several different programs dealing with trauma, mentoring, housing and a six-part healing series, some of which takes place at the Thornton Street Community Garden.
"One for the children, one for the adults. And just being here, something about being in the dirt and playing, its healing," Rollins said.
We Are Better Together is also a part of the Neighborhood Trauma Team Network in Roxbury which works with about 200 women a year in their darkest hours, providing structure and support as well as hope.
"When you can see a mother, a mother of a child who took someone's life sit in a room with a mother that lost their life to homicide, and that mother's child took that person's life, that's hope because it ends and starts with us," Rollins said.
The group hopes to garner more support and funding so they can can expand their outreach and impact more families.
"We need funding to continue this work. A lot of times, I don't know where I get the strength, but I know it's my son working through me," Rollins said.
