SAAM

Years ago, a friend who does this work in another community was expecting a baby. The baby was due in April, and we learned it was a girl. For months, we begged and teased the mother-to-be that she should name her daughter Sam.

SAAM (pronounced Sam) is Sexual Assault Awareness Month . . . or as we in the business think of it "April."

Every year, it is a challenge to plan new and exciting activities and events to capture the attention and interest of people in our community. This year, we have given ourselves an extra challenge of creating not just Awareness activities, but activities that will engage people and hopefully inspire them to work with us for longer term change.

This year, our focus population is college aged men. We have a week of activities on the local college campus planned to bring men to the table, peak their interest, and then sign them up to be mentors as well as help us petition the college to strengthen the language in the school's sexual assault policy.

We are hosting a "Dorm Storm" . . . and are lucky enough to have a frat that will go into all the men's dorms and put up posters and create a scene so that students are drawn to the action. We will be having a "white ribbon" campaign . . . asking men to sign a pledge that they will not condone, commit, or remain silent about sexual violence. All of the campus police will tie white ribbons to their vehicles in support of this activity. And, we have t-shirts that were designed by a student group we will be distributing to men on campus . . . and encouraging them to wear them to the spring football scrimmage for fun and prizes.

Our hope is that we will shift the thinking about sexual violence from "it's a girl thing" to "it's a problem for women, but an issue for men."