2008 Woodie Awards
Bridge Project plants tulips to remember assault victims
By Brittany Cole
Issue date: 10/7/05 Section: News
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The idea of the planting ceremony is to have the tulips symbolize victims of domestic or dating violence. The tulips will be a visual symbol of those people for everyone to see.
"October is Domestic Violence Awareness month, and SRU is honoring it this week," said Karla Fonner, coordinator of the Bridge Project. "This is the first year for the planting ceremony, but we would like to do it again in the future."
Marcy Cushing, an advocate for domestic violence awareness, believes that the tulips are for a very good cause.
"Domestic violence is something that affects everyone," Cushing said. "It is an important issue that is hard to talk about, and does not get much attention. T
he Bridge Project gives it the right attention and offers help to victims who need it."
The goal of the tulip planting ceremony was to make students and different organizations on campus aware of domestic and dating violence.
"We invited any organization who was willing to help," Fonner said.
Two organizations that volunteered on Wednesday were the Alpha Sigma Tau and Gamma Sigma Sigma sororities.
Jenna Kubik and Stephanie Walnoha, both members of the Alpha Sigma Tau sorority, were ready and willing to help plant tulips.
Their organization had to do the planting ceremony as one of their community service projects.
Kubik said she was completely unaware of the domestic violence issues here at Slippery Rock.
"It really did raise my awareness that domestic violence is out there," Kubik said. "We do not always see it, and this will be a constant reminder that help is needed."
Walnoha, on the other hand, said she was well aware of the problem.
"I really appreciated the university's outreach to young women because it is a very serious subject," Walnoha said.
Another volunteer at the planting ceremony was Nicole, a victim of domestic violence.
"To me, it felt good to be there because I felt the connection to the other victims," Nicole said.
"It was nice to support something that I have been through. It really touched home."
During the ceremony, Fonner and Cushing passed out purple ribbons to all of the volunteers.
The purpose of the purple ribbon is to let everyone know that the participants are against domestic or relationship violence and that they will speak out to stop violence against women.
"These ribbons are not a bad reminder of what happened to me," Nicole said. "Instead, they give me hope."
