Volunteers ready to 'Paint the Town Purple' for Domestic Violence Awareness Month
By Meredith Hoffman
Painting the Town Purple?
You may see some changes downtown and around the county in the month of October. Local businesses, high school students and the County Government buildings are “painting the town purple” to recognize that October is Domestic Violence Awareness month.
The gazebo, located on the lawn of the Whitley County Courthouse, will be decorated with purple ribbons and banners and the trees will be tied with purple ribbons around the courthouse square.
Through the support of the county commissioners, county employees will be encouraged to kick off the show of support by wearing purple to work on Friday, September 30.
The Columbia City High School Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) will decorate the football field in purple for the home game on September 30, and many students will be wearing purple wrist bands as a show of support. The Whitley County Domestic Violence Task Force will have a booth to pass out free purple lapel ribbons and will be selling delicious homemade purple cookies as well.
On Wednesday, October 5, the SAVE group will chalk the side walks around CCHS to spread the message “Chalk it up to Awareness” program and painting the cafeteria windows purple. Also, every Tuesday in October, all classes will read a relevant article pertaining to domestic violence. Each day after the Pledge of Allegiance, a violence statistic will be included in the announcements.
In Columbia City, the CCHS SAVE group will be decorating a window at Star Insurance and businesses have been sent messages to put on their marquee signs to support Domestic Violence awareness during the month of October.
Whitko will be “Chalking It Up” on Friday, October 7. Also, purple ribbons will be passed out to students at the homecoming game on Friday, October 7, with half time announcements supporting Domestic Violence Awareness month.
In addition, Whitko High School’s Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) will be plastering the walls of their high school with non-violence messages and will also be hearing a fact or statistic about domestic violence following the Pledge of Allegiance every morning.
In October 1987, the first Domestic Violence Awareness Month was observed. That same year marks the initiation of the first national domestic violence toll-free hotline. In 1989 the U.S. Congress passed Public Law 101-112 designating October of that year as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.