Charity Lee…

About Charity Lee, Founder & Executive Director of The ELLA Foundation:

In March of 1980 my father, James Robert Bennett Jr. was murdered in our home. My mother was subsequently arrested, charged, tried, and acquitted of murder-for-hire. She would have faced life in prison had she been found guilty. I was 6 years old.

In February of 2007, after convincing the babysitter to go home, my son Paris sexually assaulted, beat, choked, and stabbed his little sister Ella seventeen times. He was arrested, charged, and pled true (the juvenile equivalent of guilty) to capital murder. He was 13; Ella was 4.

Because I am the daughter of a murdered father, the mother of a murderer, and the mother of a murdered child I know four facts to be irrevocably true.

One…love can conquer all.

Two…I have nothing to hide. What happened to us can, and may, happen to anyone.

Three…life is meant to be lived. Boldly.

Four…I am convinced, beyond the shadow of any doubt, the only reason I survive my personal hell is to accomplish four monumental goals. I survive to share my love and my family’s story with anyone who needs it or is willing to listen. I survive to offer my time and my heart to all victims of violence I meet. I survive to rattle the bars of the criminal justice system a bit by advocating for justice and humane treatment rather than punishment for those who do us harm. And finally, when I am done surviving hell, when goals one through three are accomplished and life sees fit to let me go, I will have survived to hold my daughter again. Four years of holding Ella was not enough.

I chose to create The ELLA Foundation™ for one reason: The ELLA Foundation™ has the potential to do more good, spread more love, than one woman alone. Since February 2007 I have spent almost every moment I am awake at work on one project or another for some agency or nonprofit. I pour my heart and personal funds into everything I do. I now do so under the auspice of my own nonprofit.

Losing my father and both of my children to murder, being the daughter of a murdered father and mother to both a murderer and a murder victim, has only served to increase the amount of love and compassion I feel for each person I encounter. Every moment I have experienced thus far has led me to one unassailable belief: the most important thing I do in this life is to help anyone, anyone at all, to remember life is meaningful and, no matter how untrue this may feel at the time, they are meaningful to life.

I have a mantra I live by: Love, Sacrifice, Service. These three spiritual truths form the basis of my ethical code, my worldview, and guide my exchanges with others. These truths transcend all boundaries of age, color, gender, sexual orientation, class, nationality, religion, and language. We all have a story that deserves to be heard. We all have different ways of sharing our story. We all have moments we are unable to see the essential role we play in life. Whether we are blinded by choice or chance makes no difference in our experience of being blind. At some point, we will all need a mustard seed of faith planted by our positive experience of another to continue to live our life the best we can, to be able to grow in all of life’s seasons.

In addition to managing The ELLA Foundation™, I am also a certified crisis interventionist. While not currently volunteering with the the San Antonio Police Department, I have over 1200 hours logged with them, during which I performed the following duties:

• Weekend patrol shifts accompanying an SAPD officer to crime scenes to offer on site support and education to victims of violent crime.

•Attendance at community outreach events to educate the public about family violence, its effects, and its prevention.

• Volunteer recruitment and training.

I have been honored with awards by various local community service organizations and the San Antonio Police Department.