Event Ideas for The i Club

The i Club CHAPTER PROGRAMMING AND EVENTS

It is strongly suggested that all i Club Chapters hold at least two educational events and one fundraising event a year. The actual number of events will depend on the size of your chapter and available dates on the school calendar. If your Chapter is in its first year of Chapterhood it may be difficult to get all three events planned, especially if you are starting your Chapter mid-year. Please make an effort to hold at least one event during your first year.

Event #1 - Student Awareness Week

Pick a week during any month, perhaps October (Domestic Violence Awareness Month) or April (Sexual Assault Awareness Month), and provide educational programs on the issues of dating violence, sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and healthy relationship. Below is a list of other ideas that you can use for a Student Awareness Week at your school:

1. Hire a speaker to address the entire student body or to work with individual classes. If hiring a national speaker is not within the Chapter’s budget, consider hiring someone from a local rape crisis center, hospital, or advocacy group.

2. Create a book display on relevant topics sexual assault and domestic violence. There is a suggested reading list in the appendix of this guide. Additionally, there may be other books that your school nurse, health teachers, school counselors or women’s resource center may suggest. Use your best judgment in determining appropriate content for your school. If you are unsure, try asking for your faculty advisor for his/her advice.

3. Sponsor a healthy or respectful date raffle. Often you can get a local movie theater or restaurant to donate two tickets and/or dinner-for-two to raffle to your activities. Chapter members can sell chances to win for $1-$5 a chance depending on what you think you can get students to pay for a chance to win. The money raised during the raffle can be used to advance future i Club Chapter events or contributed to The i Club Headquarters.

4. Create and wear The i Club T-Shirts. All you need are blank T-shirts, fabric markers or paint and some good old fashion creativity.

5. Ring a bell every 12 seconds reminder of how many sexual assaults occur during the week. It is estimated that every 12 seconds a sexual assault is attempted and/or completed in the United States. To bring attention to just how frequently this occurs, ringing a bell every 12 seconds is a powerful reminder. It may not be possible for you to ring a bell every 12 seconds as your teachers and fellow classmates might find this extremely distracting, especially if you decided to do it for a whole week. If this is not feasible, try creating a visual representation, such as hanging up cutouts in a hallway. Another option would be to ring the bell over the lunch period only.

6. Put up awareness posters around your school. If your chapter cannot afford to buy posters, make some of your own.

7. Organize an after school self defense/assertiveness training workshop. A local rape crisis center or police department should be able to provide you with more options.

8. Lead a pledge for a violence-free community. Students can sign up to support any number of things including violence-free relationships, healthy relationships, or a safe community free of sexual assault, bullying, drunk driving, etc. This might take the form of a giant petition or contract located in a visible area.

9. Set up a table with brochures, pamphlets, stickers, rape whistles, etc. Consider staffing the table with representatives from the local rape crisis center or a peer education group to answer any questions student might have.

10. Prepare a bulletin board highlighting the incidence of sexual assault. For example, you could make a series of images that represent people. Everyone would have a red heart but every fourth or fifth person’s heart would be broken to represent the statistic that approximately 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 women experience rape or attempted rape in their lifetime.

Event #2 - The i Club Fundraiser

The i Club also asks that every chapter coordinate at least one event aimed at raising funds for The i Club and the furthering of its mission. The raised monies should be sent to The i Club along with an explanation of how it was earned. We would just like to know the creative ways that The i Club chapters are using to raise money for a good cause. The money should be sent as a check or money order. Checks should be written out to The i Club.

A copy of the The i Club Fundraising Kit is included in the appendices. The Fundraising Kit is meant to assist you in your fundraising efforts. It includes more extensive suggestions for fundraising processes.

You know your school community best, so pick a fundraising event that would be most appropriate. Remember, you want to be able to raise enough money to cover the cost of holding the fundraiser and still have enough left over to donate to The i Club. Your chapter need not come up with a project designed to raise thousands of dollars and every dollar is appreciated.

In case you would like to know what your hard work is going towards, monies donated to The i Club will go towards the following current projects:

• Building and supporting a nation-wide network of peer educators through use of The i Club chapters. As you know, The i Club is a very young organization. Eventually, we like to offer resources such as newsletters, discussion forums, and paraphernalia so that The i Club chapters can share information with one another and belong to a national family of peer educators.
• Creating scholarships for students wishing to enroll in sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) programs. SANE personnel are trained to respond to sexual assault victims who seek medical attention. Currently, many hospitals and clinics do not have SANE personnel on staff.
• Creating a traveling display highlighting the incidence of sexual and partner violence among high school students. Once created, the display will travel between The i Club chapters so that it might be used for chapter’s awareness efforts.

Event #3 - Prom Safety Event

The third event should be or a Pre-Prom Awareness Event. This event should around the time of your school’s prom celebrations. The event can be as simple or as complex as you like but it should encourage students to have a safe prom night. A safe night includes one free of sexual violence, drunk driving, physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual harassment, or other unhealthy or dangerous interactions.

For those particularly ambitious chapters we have included a copy of Campus Outreach Services’ Unofficial Guide to Planning Your First Official Take Back the Night Event should your chapter wish to attempt something on a bigger scale. Take Back the Night is a community-based event that is traditionally held at colleges to protest sexual violence but you are welcome to attempt to hold one in your community if you like.

For the high school i Club Chapters, Prom Safety programs may be a better idea. You may want to bring in an outside speaker to talk about making healthy choices on Prom night. If your chapter does not have sufficient funding to bring in someone, consider collaborating with SADD, MADD, S.T.A.R.T., Student Assistance Counselors, or any other local resources that you might have. Or if you believe the peer educators in your i Club Chapter to be sufficiently knowledgeable, the Chapter could conduct the student program itself by performing a play, workshop, or similar activity. If your school administrators already plan a Pre-Prom assembly, inquire about becoming involved. Let the coordinators of the Pre-Prom assembly know that you wish to address the following issues regarding Prom night.

Whatever you decide to do, make sure to remind students that if they are to have a safe date, they must 1) Respect their date and 2) Communicate with their date.