Share Your Fearless Grant recipient: Meet Hannah Kay Herdlinger (Domestic Violence Survivor. Thriver.)

“Hannah Kay has always been focused on making an impact, the question is really how big her impact will be.” -Mandy (Hannah Kay’s friend of 22 years)

It’s words like these (and multiple nominations hitting our inbox!) that drew us in and why we selected Hannah Kay to be our second Share Your Fearless Grant Award recipient. (if you are unfamiliar–with every session our studio books–$150 goes into our grant to fund a deserving woman a full experience.)

Surviving and Thriving after domestic abuse

In 2014, when the abuse she’d been suffering at the hands of her husband came to a head. Her friends and family encouraged her to leave, and she did. In the process of packing up her old life and embarking on her new one, Hannah visited a local domestic violence shelter to make a donation.

What she saw there changed her life and set her on a path to empower other survivors like her and ensure that the horrifying statistics surrounding domestic violence — it impacts 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men every year — start to change.

She then founded her company ThreadTalk as a means of providing valuable monetary support to domestic violence shelters across the US by donating 10% or all proceeds to the ‘wish lists’ of these organizations. (continued below)

Hannah Kay had always been a ‘behind the scenes’ kind of person. Until now. She now steps onto stages across the country and her Empowered Portraits Experience™ was meant to celebrate all she has overcome and that she is “no longer in the wings.”

In addition to creating meaningful photographs for her website-Hannah Kay wanted to created two custom pieces of art reflecting one of the many powerful lessons she learned on the road during her speaking engagements– that sometimes, in the face of difficult times–we just need to “break a few plates.”

Now, these art pieces will hang on the walls of her office and home to remind her both of how far she has come and her strength of remaining “light, joyful and strong” through incredibly difficult times–but also that breaking plates is sometimes needed…no matter how strong we have become.