Peace House Ashland Oregon

PEACE HOUSE

Nationally Prominent Advocate for Military Families Joins Peace House as Executive Director

Stacy Bannerman had a lengthy career in non-profit service before 2003, when her husband was first deployed to Iraq. It included directing the Martin Luther King, Jr. Family Outreach Center in Spokane, Washington. But it was the experience of serving on the home front of a war she felt morally wrong that led her to national prominence as an advocate for wounded veterans and their families.

After working largely on her own as a speaker, writer, lobbyist, and creator of programs to care for military families in distress, Bannerman has now chosen to pursue her passion for peace and justice within the framework of an established and widely respected peace and justice organization. “We’re so pleased she did,” said Herbert Rothschild, board chair of Peace House. “We’ve been volunteer-led since 2007, and for more than a year we have been positioning ourselves to hire an executive director. The pool of applicants was very strong, but Stacy stood out.”

He continued, “It isn’t just that Stacy has extensive experience and skills in all aspects of non-profit management. She has that deep passion for advancing the core values that Peace House exists to promote. Under her direction we anticipate extraordinary growth of an already strong organization.”

Currently a resident of White City, in 2006 Bannerman published When the War Came Home: The Inside Story of Reservists and the Families They Leave Behind (Continuum Publishing). She recounts, “I kept meeting and hearing from hundreds of veterans and military families members with heartbreaking accounts of losing their loved one after they made it back from combat. In 2007, I began focusing my efforts on military spouses, Guard & Reserve families and women veterans, providing a Sanctuary Weekend for Women Veterans and Camp Howdy for children of deployed National Guard soldiers.”

From its inception Bannerman opposed our war-of-choice in Iraq, joining with Military Families Speak Out. Far from believing she wasn’t supporting the troops, she felt the war itself was jeopardizing their well-being. “The decision to declare war is the single most critical factor for our men and women in uniform, military families and veterans. If we get that wrong, then everything that comes afterwards—including the nation’s willingness to sacrifice for the war; the duration and severity of the mental health issues suffered by the troops, veterans and military families; their capacity to endure multiple deployments and the ability to recover from bearing the burdens of war—is profoundly and detrimentally affected.”

Bannerman’s clear and moving voice on behalf of the American victims of our recent wars has been heard across the nation and in the halls of Congress. She has conducted more than 500 multi media interviews, including segments with Hardball with Chris Matthews, BBC, PBS, NBC Nightly News, Maxim Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. She successfully secured the first-ever Congressional hearing on the impacts of war on military families, and has provided expert testimony to the US Congress on three occasions.

The Oregon legislature responded more wholeheartedly than Congress to Bannerman’s appeals. It passed the Oregon Military Family Leave Act of 2009, which required employers to provide up to 14 days of protected leave under the Oregon Family Leave Act. In the 2011 session, it established a Task Force on Military Families. Among its duties are to review and evaluate proposals for legislation relating to military families; educate the public about the needs of military families; and identify, review and propose community-based initiatives, programs, tools and resources to assist military families.

As executive director of Peace House, Bannerman will help the organization advance the work in all its program areas, including passing legislation to help working families and a just resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict. “The issue agenda of Peace House changes over time in response to needs and opportunities,” Rothschild said. “But the one constant since its founding in 1982 has been an unswerving commitment to nonviolence at every level of social organization, from the personal to the international. As someone who understands first-hand the dreadful toll that war takes, Bannerman’s voice for nonviolence will be especially authoritative.”

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