HISTORY

How did Find Your Fabulosity come

about? 

While on hiatus as a college speaker in the summer of 2015, attending a program by her local sheriff’s department was life changing for Sheryl Kurland. The Seminole County (FL) Sheriff’s Department offered a course for civilians, the Community Law Enforcement Academy. Sheryl enrolled. One evening the topic was “domestic violence and dating violence.” It was gripping. The horrific pictures and terrifying recordings of 911 calls gave Sheryl flashbacks of her own brushes she had had with this issue:

• Her apartment mate who mysteriously abandoned their friendship. The apartment mate eventually revealed she was moving out to return to her ex-husband who beat her.
• A field trip Sheryl chaperoned for her daughter’s youth group, when one of the teens asked the shelter manager “Is it abuse if my dad is always yelling at my mom and calls her bad names?”
• Close friend who seemed to have it all, The American Dream, until she told Sheryl her secret: her renowned attorney husband was verbally abusive, filled with extreme rage, and she feared for her life.
• The college student who confided to Sheryl that her older brother still lived with their parents and the brother battered his live-in girlfriend while the parents looked the other way.

How can I do more?

When the Academy ended, Sheryl took the required training to become a Certified Domestic Violence Advocate through the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence so she could volunteer at SafeHouse, her county’s domestic violence shelter for women. There, she met victims, everyday wonderful women who had been beaten and bruised physically and emotionally.

How can I really make a difference?

Sheryl devised an idea: With some alterations of the content in her presentations for college students, she could offer “relationship” workshops for the shelter residents. The SafeHouse manager gave her the green light, and every other week, Sheryl gave a free workshop for the women. Once a month, Sheryl also led a program for Outreach, the communitywide support group for women victims. Getting to know them on a more personal level, Sheryl truly has seen and felt their barrenness, their raw, broken souls. As one woman told Sheryl, “I can’t look in a mirror because I’m no longer who I am.”

How can I help victims of domestic violence feel again?

Feel pretty? Feel worthy? Even fabulous?

Sheryl remembered something her mother has often suggested on those not-so-good days that we all have….

“Sheryl just put on a little lipstick and you’ll feel better.”

 -Bette Ann Leider, Sheryl’s mom

That’s it! Lipstick!

Sheryl bought a supply of new lipsticks, took them to her SafeHouse workshops, and gave them to the women residents (victims). She invited them to take their pick. Happiness and laughter filled the room and their pain lifted! The sunshine in their souls appeared! The women basked in helping each other pick their perfect lipstick shade. This incredible experience kept happening over and over and over again at Sheryl’s workshops for the women, women healing from domestic violence. Sheryl was inspired, “I have to multiply this miracle by thousands!” And Find Your Fabulosity was born.

Today

Find Your Fabulosity, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, serves as a collection hub for donations of new/never-used lipsticks for women who are victims of domestic violence. The lipsticks are given free to women’s domestic violence shelters for distribution to their residents (victims). To a woman who is a victim of domestic violence, a new lipstick creates healing and marks a new beginning and rediscovery of her voice, identity, and beauty inside and out – her “fabulosity.” Find Your Fabulosity has donated 100,000+ new lipsticks to nearly 300 women’s domestic violence shelters across the U.S. in all 50 states.

How You Can help

We welcome your generous support. There are two ways to donate:

1) New lipsticks

2) Money

All new lipsticks are given to women’s domestic violence shelters throughout the U.S. There they are given free to residents. To a victim, a new lipstick is a tube of inspiration and healing. Every lipstick makes a difference! 

Your financial donation will be used to purchase new lipsticks and ship them to women’s domestic violence shelters throughout the U.S. We are a 100% volunteer organization, which means your dollars go farther! You may donate in honor of someone or in memory of someone.

Whether you donate lipsticks or money, your donation is tax deductible.

The power of a lipstick, healing victims of domestic violence.