Jill Tremlett Large Author Of Where The Light Gets In: Stories About The Transformative Power Of One Action

 

In this episode, we explore the powerful impact of scholarships for abuse survivors with Jill Tremlett Large, a key figure in the Women’s Independence Scholarship Program (WISP). Since 2003, Jill has been instrumental in providing financial support and hope to women who have endured intimate partner abuse. Through her work and her book, “Where the Light Gets In,” she shares inspiring stories of resilience and empowerment. Join us as we delve into the life-changing ripple effects of these scholarships and the importance of community and support in overcoming adversity.

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Jill Tremlett Large Author Of Where The Light Gets In: Stories About The Transformative Power Of One Action

 

Introduction To The Women’s Independence Scholarship Program

Since 2003, Jill Tremlett Large has worked with participants in the Women’s Independence Scholarship Program, WISP for short. For 25 years, WISP has provided financial support in the form of college scholarships to women who are survivors of intimate partner abuse. The book Where the Light Gets In is a collection of stories from program participants about the gift that they received from WISP and about the infinite positive ripple effect of that one action.

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Jill, welcome. It’s great to see you. 

Thanks. It’s great to be here. 

I’m excited to have you tell us about your book, how that came about, and all of the juicy stuff you wanted to share about this book, Where the Light Gets In. 

Thank you. It’s a project that I was assigned to work on. The assignment was to think of something to do to celebrate our 25th anniversary of providing scholarships to women who are survivors of intimate partner abuse. A little backstory, I work for the Women’s Independent Scholarship Program, which was started by Doris Buffett in 1999. It’s a momentous occasion. It’s a quarter century of helping women complete the education that they choose. No small task. I come up with an idea, but that’s part of my job.

I work with our graduates and I also am in charge of our legacy because Doris Buffett passed away in 2020, so it did fall within what I was supposed to do. Unfortunately, what ended up happening was the inspiration for the book came from an email that is the first story in the book. Linda sent me this note out of the blue and said that she was an early recipient of our scholarship within the first few years. For about the last twenty or so years, she thinks about Doris every day and the gift that she received from WISP. She does everything she can to pass that gift forward to every patient that she works with. 

She’s in the medical field and it struck me that, first of all, that’s an incredibly long time to have remembered the scholarship and to think of it daily, and then to pass that type of goodwill forward and the idea of infinite ripples. I got curious. First of all, I wanted to know what does she think the gift was. She didn’t tell me in the email. She said this gift of WISP. I wanted to know what she thought it was. I also wondered if anybody else had stories like that. 

That was the idea. I decided I would collect these stories and put them in a book. I had no idea how to do that. What was also interesting was when I proposed this idea to my executive director, she immediately said yes. Very quickly, after I decided I was going to do these interviews, I sent out an ask for volunteers and I got a lot of positive responses. In this other group that I’m part of, I co-host a meditation group. One of the members voluntarily said that she had written a book where she interviewed students who were in recovery. I thought that’s exactly what I wanted to do.

I had a mentor, someone who I could talk to and gave me the framework for it. She put me in touch with an editor. I say all of these things to say that this whole project was a series of green lights. There was never a time when I got a no. Every time I got to a point where I didn’t exactly know where to go or what to do next, something would come across my email or a person would say something. The way kept becoming clear.

 

Overcoming Personal Fears While Creating The Book

The challenge for me was to keep saying yes to it. This was not only a project for my job, but it was a beautiful collaboration with the storytellers who are featured here. It was also a personal journey of looking at some of my fears about being visible myself. I was uncomfortable with my name being on this book. I don’t like having my name on the cover.

Because?

I felt very visible, and they’re not even my stories. It was almost too much exposure in a way. I prefer to be in the background. I don’t like being the center. I’m getting sweaty right now talking about it. I had to keep going back to if this was not supposed to be, it would have been halted in some place. I’m going to continue with the energy and the momentum because this message is very important to me. I want this message to be out in the world. If I am the person who’s going to be the voice of the message, who am I to keep my mouth shut? Who am I to let my fears or my desire to stay small keep me quiet? That’s not okay. 

What makes this such a powerful topic for you? 

There are several things. I’ll start with the author bio and in it, I have one line where I say that I experienced my own painful time when I became a mother and a widow in a space of ten days. That gives me a unique way to connect with other people who have seen difficult times and have used that pain to fuel their purpose. That to me is an incredibly important message to give across because I thought that I was broken when everything fell apart. I had so much difficulty and had to walk through pain for days and years. 

I thought there was something wrong with me. Now that I’ve come through that, and it’s always with you, I’ve come through a lot of the intense times and I realized it made me better. Each of the stories in this book also is that same way. Each storyteller had her own particular set of circumstances and has come through on the other side with a gift, and they’re sharing it now. That goes back to the introduction where I talk a little bit about Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing something broken with gold. I woke up one morning thinking about human kintsugi.

I knew that had to go into the book because I felt broken but I do think that I fixed those broken pieces with gold. Because I was broken, it’s now more beautiful. It’s elevated. That’s why I’m passionate about this. That’s why it’s so important to me. I also truly believe that it’s not such a sweeping grandiose gesture that’s necessary to change the world. Each person has the power to change the world simply by using their unique gifts. I also think that this book is a great example of that.

 

When life breaks you, repair those broken pieces with gold. Embrace the beauty in your scars. Share on X

 

The Ripple Effect Of The Scholarship Program

Doris Buffett herself started this scholarship, and all of her philanthropy was driven by places in her life that were painful. She identified with people who needed a hand up and it’s not charity. She understood that not everybody had equal chances in life. She wanted to level the playing field. Each storyteller in the book is very similar. That’s why I know that I had to get out of my own way. I have to face these fears and these voices that tell me, “Be quiet, don’t talk.” They’re still there, but this is more important. 

I love the way the individual stories for anybody who has the eyes to see are these stories of strength and accomplishment. I don’t know what kind of a screening mechanism you have, but it seems like Adam Grant wrote the book Give and Take. He talks about how there are people who are takers, people who are givers, and people who are matchers. His theory was, “I bet that the lower 25% of the socioeconomic scale, all the way down here in poverty, is overloaded with people who are givers, and they’ve given away all their money, and that’s why they’re poor.”

He did some research to figure out how to create the assessment device, whether you are a giver, a taker, or a matcher, and administered it to people at both ends of the spectrum and all through the middle, and he was right. There are more givers in the lower 25 percentile of socioeconomic status in our country, but there are also more givers in the upper 25 percent. How does that happen and what are the differences between the people at the high end versus the low end when they’re both givers?

He got hungry about that question like, “Let’s sort this out.” What he found by interviewing people is that there are some significant differences. People in the higher quadrant of the socioeconomic level who identify as givers do certain things like they make sure that they and their family have plenty first, and then they give from their surplus. 

They balance their energies. They don’t go all-in on one thing, and they have a tendency to screen to make sure that they’re not giving too much to people who are takers or matchers. They give more to other givers. This ripple effect you mentioned before is amplified. It strikes me that either you’ve been lucky or you’ve got some good screening in these stories because these are people who are using what they’ve been given and using it as a blessing for themselves and others.

I feel like there is a fair amount of luck, good fortune, or something that happens in everything that we tend to do. When I say we, I mean the Women’s Independent Scholarship Program. We do screen. For this book in particular, I did send out emails to all of our graduates. It is interesting to me that the people who stepped forward to share their stories did have that commonality. They all took their pain and turned it into their purpose, or they’re using it as fuel for doing something good in the world. 

I would suspect that there are probably a lot more who maybe didn’t get the email or are doing that, I’m willing to bet. I also wanted to say that our scholarship is need-based. We are choosing people who have little to no education. We do not look at their educational background or if they’ve gone to college before. They don’t need a particular GPA. It’s not merit-based. They don’t have to have a ton of amazing qualifications, and they rise to the top. 

We have very minimal requirements to continue with our program. For example, we have a GPA requirement. It’s a 2.75, which is I think a C-plus. It’s more to make sure that they’re passing classes and eventually will complete their degree. We have so many people who are high achievers. Some of it can be attributed to the fact that someone who didn’t know them believed in them enough to invest in their education. I can guess at that but it has also been said time and time again. 

There is so much about our interactions in the community and the expectations we hold for ourselves. It’s such a powerful set of dynamics that is often not even recognized, but it’s still active. 

Very much so. This was also something we did accidentally. It’s building that community way back before we understood how important community is for people in general. All of this research about ACEs and trauma and how we’re wired for connection now validates what we’ve been doing all along. 

We do very intentionally create a community of caring. I said to someone recently that Doris Buffett’s legacy can be summed up in two words, which are caring deeply. She cared very much about every single one of our scholarship recipients. That comes through in everything that we do even now. One of our requirements when someone gets a scholarship is they have to send a thank you note. There’s a section in the book called Thank You, and it explains why. Doris would read them and comment on them. 

She would sometimes call us up and ask us questions about that particular person. She was heavily personally invested in each person’s success. What I recently realized is that for survivors of intimate partner abuse, that connection is even more healing because abuse is isolating on purpose. The abuser purposely cuts off connection with friends, family, the outside community, and on and on. For someone to come back into the community can be a little scary. It can be very weird. Sometimes they forget how to interact with people. 

 

True healing begins when you reconnect with a community that cares. You are not alone. Share on X

 

The whole learning. 

It’s relearning. It’s healing. It’s the antidote to all the negative things they’ve been told. That’s an extra layer of why community and connection are so important for the women that we work with and probably for all of us. 

 

There are so many things I think about while I’m reading the book. One of them is a couple of different charity organizations that I’ve been involved with over the years. I have had a focus on let’s not just throw money at the problem. Let’s make sure that we’re doing something that empowers the people who receive this. There are a few stories in your book that highlight how valuable it is to have a team like yours offering money to people in that situation is that they understand so many of the dynamics of a person who’s working with or trying to get out of intimate partner abuse. 

For instance, the story where the woman got the money for the car and the note came to her and said, “Do not repair your partner’s car. Go get a car in your own name.” The volume speaks about the understanding of the levels of control, the need for autonomy, and the different kinds of strings that can get pulled by an abuser in those situations enlightens the people. You’re sharing at such an important level because you understand the dynamics, and you’re offering people not just some money but some guidance for how to get out of their situation into something better.

That was a powerful story. That’s Christine’s story. At the time, she still had that car. It was years later that she felt like they got it.

Somebody sees me. 

Another important point in these stories is being seen. There are a couple of women who mentioned that they were so happy to have the opportunity to tell their story in their own way, rather than someone else taking their story, like in the court system. One of them, in particular, got cast as a forever student, going to school so she didn’t have to get a job. It’s these negative judgments, but she got to tell her story the way it was true for her. 

Being seen in the way you want to be seen is important rather than having these labels placed upon you. Even talking about it, I feel the heaviness of these labels and having to carry the shame that comes along with them, and to be able to throw that off, “I’m not taking what you call me. That’s not what I am.”

 

Being seen in your true light is essential. Reject the labels others place upon you. Share on X

 

If you have the number, how many people in 25 years have received scholarships? 

It’s high up in the thousands. I don’t want to say the wrong number and be hyperbole, but it was a surprisingly high number. That’s an interesting question too because we could talk about individual people that we’ve helped or a number of scholarships because each person might get quite a few scholarships if she starts with us to do an associate’s degree and then completes her bachelor’s. That could be six years worth of scholarships too. The number of scholarships is high in the thousands. We might’ve gone over 3,000 individuals now that have completed their degrees or gotten scholarships from us.

Is it geographically centered in one area of the country or another?

It’s national.

How do people find out about this program?

There are several ways. The internet helped us a lot. When I started back in 2003, the internet was not a big thing. In the very beginning, Doris and the people who were working on this scholarship initially marketed through state coalitions for domestic violence. It was reliant on mailing, direct mail, and word of mouth. Now, people who are going to school and searching scholarship databases can find us. They might search for scholarships for women. I’m not even sure. 

I do think maybe some people search for scholarships for domestic violence survivors, and I don’t think there’s a whole lot out there other than us. One of the two storytellers found us in a book. There used to be these giant books of scholarships that would be updated as soon as they got printed. She found us there, and then another did find us on the internet on a scholarship database. We are unique because, in addition to that partnership with us, we require that each scholarship applicant has a community partner that they work with. We call them sponsors.

We prefer that it’s an advocate or someone who works at a nonprofit organization particularly that has some expertise or knowledge of intimate partner abuse. That network of organizations, maybe 200 or 300 around the country, also will connect clients. If someone comes in and this person says they might want to go to school, they know that eventually, they could refer to WISP. 

One of the other things that appealed to me, and I can see how it has a positive effect in a lot of these stories is that there aren’t a lot of restrictions on what you can use the money for. You use it to move yourself forward. It seems to me anyway that it’s not weighed down in so much red tape that people have to worry about accounting for every penny. I thought that plays out beautifully in so many of the stories. People are able to use the money to help move themselves and their families forward without a whole bunch of red tape.

 

Unique Needs And Flexibility Of The Scholarship

We are so lucky that we don’t have a lot of red tape like a government grant or program that often has tons of stipulations. We have a few. We have to answer to the IRS. There are certain things we need and certain boundaries. Each woman knows best what she needs. Honoring each person’s individual experience is important. 

 

Every woman knows what she needs best. Honoring each person’s experience is vital. Share on X

 

There are certain barriers. There’s not a lot of government assistance available or even in the community. Car repairs, that’s a tricky one. Childcare is expensive. Sometimes those vouchers don’t cover everything. In the book, Alicia’s story talks about her need for childcare, but what that looked like was keeping her daughter in this private school because they had before-school care and they had after-school care. 

She did not have to drive two hours home to get her daughter from school to daycare or rely on a bus or someone else. Her daughter could go in at 7:00 in the morning and she could pick her up at 5:00. It offered some consistency and continuity for her daughter during this tumultuous time when this stuff was happening at home. Some people might look sideways at private school tuition, but for her, this was the fit. We could say that’s childcare. Absolutely, you can use the money for that. 

If you think about what we’ve talked about so far, there are so many wonderful stories in the book. What’s an aspect that we haven’t touched on yet that you want to make sure people know about this work or these people that you’re helping?

 

Challenges And Realities Of Intimate Partner Abuse

If we’re talking about intimate partner abuse, there are a couple of things I would say. First, a lot of times when people think about it, they only think of the physical aspect of intimate partner abuse. That’s one type, but there are a lot of other types that we also take into consideration that people should know about because they might even be experiencing it and not know. 

Emotional abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse, and spiritual abuse come down to this idea of power and control. One person exerts power and control over another. It’s an education to read the book. I think the stories cover the whole spectrum of that. The other one would be that it can happen to anyone of any socioeconomic status. It’s not just poor people or it’s not just those people.

It’s certainly not the stupid people. They are very intelligent and very competent people. 

It can be very sneaky and insidious and hard to recognize. To kind of dispel the idea of what only happens to certain types of people is important. I would also mention that in my work, we talk about men as the perpetrator most of the time and women as the victim. It is important to know that this can happen in same-sex relationships too. Certainly, men can be victimized. The reason we focus only on women for this scholarship and to help them get an education that would lead to employment is that women have less economic opportunity than men currently.

That’s where our focus lies, but that’s not to say that that’s the only type of abuse that ever happens. We certainly recognize the whole spectrum and that there are services for people who fall outside of our scholarship parameters. If someone has this going on or if they feel like they’re in an abusive relationship, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is for anyone. 

That’s a good point. As you’re saying that, I remember one of the last people I worked with a few years ago now. He came in and he wanted me to help change him so that he would stop doing the things that, “Made his wife beat him.” All I had to offer him was the observation that no one was making her beat him. “I cannot do what you’re asking me to do because you’re not causing her to perpetrate this violence on you. Unless you come to that realization, then you cannot hold her accountable and/or make the changes you need to make to get out of it.”

It does happen in all directions. It’s far more common for men to be physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive to women. It is not just one way. It also happens the other way, fortunately in smaller numbers, but it’s a real thing.

It is a real thing. I recognize that there are barriers for men getting help if they’re being abused, different from barriers for women. 

The biggest one is being able to admit it. It’s hard enough for women to admit it. It’s even more intensely difficult for a man to admit that. 

No question. In same-sex relationships, that was a learning curve for me. In hindsight, looking at it and thinking, of course, it’s not so much gender. It is the power and control cycle but I will venture to say that in our current social climate, the patriarchal view of men being dominant is probably why I see more men’s violence against women. That’s something that Jackson Katz has written several books on. He works in this field too, and he specifically says men’s violence against women to point out who is perpetrating it and call out that particular person. 

We could go down that rabbit hole and analyze it and pick it apart. Those general points that I made hopefully get people thinking maybe a little differently about what their view is of an abused woman or a victim of domestic violence. Think a little more broadly if they are being maltreated in a relationship they consider seeking something.

There’s good stuff out there, especially over the past years when the internet has taken off. Ted Talks from people who were intelligent and competent, but they were willing to get on stage and say, “I was in a pattern that was severely abusive to me.” It’s great to be able to have resources like WISP to offer people. As we get near the end of our time here, what would you offer people if they wanted to reach out to you or the WISP? What’s the best way for them to connect?

I think email is probably the best. They could certainly start with me. If I’m not the right person to talk to them, I’ll direct them. I used to be a case manager. If I don’t know the answer, I will either find it or find the person who does. That email is easy. Jill@WISPInc.org. If there are notes or whatever, you can put that in there.

 

How To Connect With The Women’s Independence Scholarship Program

On our website, which is WISPInc.org, there are links to each person. If somebody thinks they would like to apply and they see on the contact page, they can click the scholarship coordinator for their particular state and be connected directly with that person. The website is a great resource for tons of information about our program, but we do also try to provide other information, mostly geared towards school. Other scholarship searches or places where they might get some aid for school. 

It’s a delightful book. Thank you for writing it. Thank you for the work you’re doing and for being willing to share this time with us.

I appreciate it. Thank you for reading and for sharing my message.

You’re very welcome and deserving. Blessings.

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Since 2003, Jill Tremlett-Large has worked with participants in the Women’s Independence Scholarship Program, WISP for short. For 25 years, WISP has provided financial support in the form of college scholarships to women who are survivors of intimate partner abuse. The book Where the Light Gets In is a collection of stories from participants about the gift that they received from WISP and about the infinite positive ripple effect of that one action.

 

Important Links:

•  Jill Tremlett Large – LinkedIn
• Women’s Independence Scholarship Program
• Where the Light Gets In
• Give and Take

 

About Jill Tremlett Large

Since 2003, Jill Tremlett Large has worked with participants in the Women’s Independence Scholarship Program (WISP). For 25 years, WISP has provided financial support in the form of college scholarships to women who are survivors of intimate partner abuse. Where the Light Gets In is a collection of stories from program participants about the “gift” that they received from WISP and the infinite positive ripple effect of that one action.