Take Back The Night

I helped organize an event on my university campus, called Take Back The Night. I had the opportunity to design the flyers and tshirts for the event, and I was also a speaker at it, sharing my story. We weren't expected many people, and thought we were crazy to have ordered 100 shirts to hand out for free. I was thinking thatwe would have tons of shirts left. We had almost TWO HUNDRED people show up. We actually ran out of shirts. It was so amazing. People wrote why they were there on notecards and we had The Current (an anti violence theatrical group) read them outloud from within the crowd. It was amazing. There were so many survivors. We walked, chanted, and spoke all around the campus in a big herd of pink shirts. We also wrote all over the front of the campus union in chalk-- reasons why were were walking, why rape is terrible, and just anything and everything we could to break the silence. I just can't even begin to explain to you the empowerment I felt being there with nearly 200 people that cared about these issues. Not only that, but there were at least 10 survivors that made themselves known through notecards and to have an event that is all about THEM I can only imagine what a positive feeling that must have envoked inside of them. We were able to give a voice to people that otherwise might never have had one. It was so amazing, and I can't say that enough. All of the hours upon hours upon hours I spent brainstorming, designing 6 different shirts, narrowing down colors, finding a printer, setting up for print, making flyers, printing flyers, flyering the school, and outlining a speech I never once imagined that the product would be so wonderful. I already want to start planning an event for the next semester. There were so many people that loved the shirts I made or wanted to be there 40 minutes early just to get the "cool" shirt that I made. I made a cool shirt that is about nothing but ending sexual assault, partner violence, and stalking. 200 people were wearing those shirts. I just can't put into the words the feeling I had in seeing my art on 200 people that care about survivors or on survivors themselves. Wow. I will never forget that.