I speak, but no one believes me. For a time the mountains have been asleep. But long ago they all danced with fire. Fourteen MHC employees have agreed to be team leaders for the October 26 Rays of Hope Walk, which will raise money toward finding a cure for breast cancer. In 1993, Kato lost her daughter to domestic violence, and she herself grew up in Japan in a home that suffered from domestic violence.
Japan is like the U.S. was thirty years ago on the topic.
Following her daughter's death, Kato set up a fund for victims of domestic violence and began lecturing widely in Massachusetts to educate others. The Japanese television crew filmed her in the ER department of Methuen's Holy Hospital, where she discussed how to identify and respond to domestic violence. While at Mount Holyoke, Kato worked 300 hours a year in the theatre department making costumes in exchange for tuition. Her advisors and friends in the theatre department encouraged her work, leading her to accept a job as a designer in New York state. At this job, she picked up the production skills needed to start her own dressmaking business, which she launched in Northampton in 1980.