SCHERTZ, TX -Free Battered Texas Women will show its exhibit, Acting under Duress, Surviving with Resilience, on Sunday, October 19, 2025, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at The Schertz Community Center, 1400 Schertz Parkway. FBTW is a woman-led and survivor-led 501c(3) nonprofit whose mission is to stop arrests of women who acted under duress from abuse and to support incarcerated and released survivors.

The exhibit tells the stories of four formerly incarcerated survivors in prose and photos. Executive Director Dr. Cathy Marston, a Schertz resident and survivor, wrote all of the copy with financial assistance from The Resist Foundation; Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation Margaret Fuller Grant; Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation; and the Community Responsibility Endowment Fund & Social Justice Committee at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Antonio; and NEO Philanthropy’s BRIDGE Movement Fund.

“Our goal is to humanize the actions of abuse survivors under duress,” said FBTW Executive Director Dr. Cathy Marston. “We hope everyone will come out to ponder their relationship to the criminal legal system whose gender biased interpretation compounds unthinkable further victimization with the wrongful arrest of battered women.” Light refreshments will be served.

FBTW has freed 26 women since 2014 – 7 in the past year. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has pardoned 28 survivors since 2020 in a unique clemency process overseen by the Survivors Project, the state clemency coalition of which FBTW is a founding member.

FBTW has also shown its exhibit four times in the past year, including at the Film Festival in San Marcos, Universal City, And the University of the Incarnate Word for Dream Week 2025.

“We empower survivors to become survivor-advocates,” said Marston. FBTW has served 85 women and was cofounded by Marston and U.S. Army (Retired) SFC Cheryl Craig, who are both formerly incarcerated survivors.

FBTW provides programs in education, advocacy, and healing – with the latter being direct communication with incarcerated and released survivors. Every holiday season, FBTW mails out a newsletter to survivors and allies; and most Januarys since 2016, they do an event for Dream Week.