T-shirt on Empower clothesline
Courtesy of Isabel Marzullo/The Bona Venture
BY: ISABEL MARZULLO, FEATURES ASSIGNMENT EDITOR
During the Vietnam War, 58,000 soldiers were killed; in that same time frame, 51,000 American women were killed by their intimate partners. This has been the premise behind Empower’s annual clothesline project.
Empower is a group of St. Bonaventure University students focused on bringing awareness toward sexual assault and domestic violence.
“When I stepped into this position and I read about [the clothesline project], I was like, this is a really nice kind of awareness,” said Tara Kent-Leonard, director of sexual violence prevention and education.
The clothesline went up in the center of campus by Plassmann on Sept. 16 and came down Sept. 20.
“[The clothesline is] such a visual thing on campus and you can’t miss it., said Kent-Leonard. It’s right in the middle of campus, everyone has classes somewhere in this area so most people are seeing it walking by.”
While up, Empower members added popular T-shirts loved from previous years along with new shirts containing messages such as: keep up the fight, believe victims and you are loved.
“There’s seven or 10 new shirts,” said Kent-Leonard. “Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but there’s a lot of people who sign in order to make a shirt.”
A table was also set up in front of the clothesline serving as a place where students could speak to members, pick up pins and stickers and write feel-good messages on the shirts as they walked by.
“The clothesline project has been around for a while,” said Makayla Kuras, a freshman adolescent education major with a concentration in history. “So, all we really needed to do was find people to volunteer at the table and make sure everything runs the way it is supposed to.”
One of the members who volunteered at the table was Olivia Francis, a sophomore communications and social justice advocacy major.
“We were asking people who were passing by to write words of encouragement or very positive words that way when people walk by when all the shirts are hung up, they can see these kind remarks that their fellow students think about them,” said Francis.
Francis said she joined Empower over a year ago with the hope of becoming a voice for those who don’t have one.
“The main reason why I joined [Empower] was because I wanted to be a big advocate for people who’ve gone through sexual assault, or domestic violence,” said Francis. “I wanted to be that person who could speak up for people who feel like they have no voice, or they don’t know how to speak up about those types of things.”
marzulig22@bonaventure.edu
