Empty Chair Display

honoring our loved ones

The Tragic Side of Domestic Violence

We started an Empty Chair Project in 2018 to raise public awareness of domestic violence homicides in Iowa. Each year more chairs are added to the display as more people lose their lives to domestic violence. The Empty Chair Display is available at the Centre Mall in Sioux Center, Iowa, every year during Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October. The display is typically shown Monday-Friday during the last full week of October.

More Than An Empty Chair

More Than An Empty Chair is a piece of this project that seeks to honor the memories of victims. We want to share their light with the rest of the world and acknowledge that they are not forgotten. We invited families who have lost a loved one to domestic violence to share a picture of their loved one, as well as a small write-up about them, to be placed in the display. Our hope is that this is a small way we can help honor loved ones and remember them each year.

Learn how you can Fill A Chair with Hope below.

Fill A Chair with Hope

Each empty chair in our display represents an Iowan whose life was taken by domestic violence — a seat at the table, a classroom desk, or a workplace chair that will never again be filled.

Your support helps transform these chairs from symbols of loss into reminders of hope. Every gift strengthens the work that helps people find safety, stability, and healing.

A gift of $25 honors one life lost and helps bring hope to someone still finding their way forward. You can fill as many chairs as you’d like.

Those who give have the option to be listed on our Tribute Wall below, where names remain until September 30 of the following year, as we start our next Fill a Chair with Hope remembrance.

Be part of the change. Fill a chair with hope now.

Thank you for walking with us as we remember those lost and continue the work of preventing future violence.

Tribute Wall: Honoring Those Who Give Hope

Each name on this Tribute Wall represents a commitment to honoring those lost to domestic violence and supporting the survivors still fighting for safety.