ORANGE BEACH — There is strength in sharing the truth, Penny Hughey said to a room of people dressed to the nines, and that's just what she did.

Her truth is one you can't see through her role as vice president of education and programs for the Coastal Alabama Business Chamber. It is one of intimidation and betrayal, a childhood of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her older brother and dismissal from her parents who did not believe her.

"My cries for help were dismissed. They said there's no way he would do such a thing and that I should be ashamed of myself for making up such terrible lies about my brother," Hughey said Nov. 7 at the Baldwin County Child Advocacy Center's second-annual Fall Ball, a fundraiser held at the Coastal Arts Center of Orange Beach. "I will never forget how that made me feel."

Hughey spoke publicly for the first time as a survivor of child abuse at the event, which supports BCCAC services for child victims of sexual abuse and severe physical abuse and their supportive, non-offending family members through a multidisciplinary team approach. These services are conducted in a home-like environment rather than what is often otherwise found to be more sterile, unwelcoming settings like hospitals and police stations. The center opened in 1989 and has served thousands of children through its main location in Summerdale and satellite office in Bay Minette.

Even after she grew up and moved hundreds of miles away from her family, from her psychological prison where her brother "wielded threats like weapons, as if the physical pain wasn't already enough," Hughey would spend years in a "constant state of fight or flight" that took a toll physically and mentally. It wasn't until her parents passed away and her brother died in a car accident that she felt free and able to seek therapy and healing care.

"We are so fortunate to have in our community the Baldwin County Child Advocacy Center. I didn't have resources like this. Maybe my story would have been different if I had," she said.

There is strength in sharing the truth, Hughey said, and in sharing hers, she and those who attended the event, won local gifts and trips in a silent auction and bid on items in a live auction helped promote the truth that victims of child abuse are not alone and have resources to heal when supported by their community.