This post is longer than usual, and chock full of great information and inspiration from guest author Angela Rose, Founder and CEO of PAVE (Promoting Awareness|Victim Empowerment). Thank you Angela!
Networking: The Gift that Keeps on Giving!
Earlier this year I had the pleasure of being the featured speaker at a meeting of Arlington Women Entrepreneurs (AWE). I spoke about overcoming adversity in both life and in business. Months prior, my story of being kidnapped from a shopping mall and sexually assaulted at the age of seventeen was highlighted on a special edition of 48 Hours and on CNN. I spoke about my journey from victim to survivor to thriver – and how I created the national nonprofit Promoting Awareness|Victim Empowerment (PAVE) to work on preventing sexual assault and also helping survivors heal.
I had recently made the tough decision to step down from my dream job as the CEO/Team Leader at Keller Williams Realty, Arlington to focus on cultivating PAVE’s national growth. Locally, PAVE has honed in on our Arlington networks, and so many connections and gifts came out of that one AWE Meeting. Coming out of the Thanksgiving holiday, I wanted to create a guest blog to send my gratitude!
A National Summit on High School Sexual Assault:
Saturday December 12 at Washington Lee HS
After seeing me speak at AWE, local entrepreneur C Lee Cawley, owner of Simplify You Professional Organizing, introduced me to Arlington Public School Board member Abby Rapahel. At the AWE meeting, I spoke about the importance of educating our youth younger. There has been a tremendous amount of media attention about campus sexual violence, but research shows the best way to prevent college assault is to start in with high school students. Thus was born our new national campaign, SafeBAE (Before Anyone Else) launching in Arlington at Washington Lee High School.
C Lee truly ignited this effort when she wrote to Abby: “I have heard Angela speak twice now and both times I have felt so excited about the work she is doing to empower young women. She is so inspiring! When she mentioned that she was hoping to do a Town Hall in a local high school, I immediately offered to introduce her to you. Her story is so powerful and the information so important to share with our daughters, sons and community. Take a look at her links and I think you will agree!”
After that introduction, our National Summit took shape as we met and collaborated with several respected Arlington nonprofits, including Doorways for Women and Families and the Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth and Families. SafeBAE Campaign Director Shael Norris comes with 17 years experience building V-Day’s Campaigns in thousands of colleges and communities. She has worked tirelessly to develop programming addressing these issues and now joins PAVE to launch this unprecedented initiative collaborating with SurvJustice and #YesAllDaughters.
The launch event is Saturday, December 12 from 2-4 pm at Washington Lee High School. It’s free and open to the public. Upper level high school students and their parents are strongly encouraged to attend. The SafeBAE Summit will feature incredibly resilient high school sexual assault survivors, who will share their powerful stories to educate students. A PSA highlighting student’s rights under Title IX will also be shown.
Following the launch event, SafeBAE will activate pilot chapters — “SafeBAE Squads” — led by student activists from around the country who will galvanize their communities through actions to promote Title IX rights, safe relationship and consent education, as well as compliance and best practices under Title IX.
Register for the SafeBAE event here: http://safebaesummit.eventbrite.com.
#ConsentIs Campaign and New Website Launch
Another great gift that came out of the AWE event was meeting graphic designer Sima Nasr of Sima-Designs. She worked with PAVE on the launch of a national consent campaign called #ConsentIs. The celebrity driven group NO MORE featured this campaign on their website here.
Sima, working with PAVE’s Outreach and Community Engagement Director Meghana Kulkarni, designed all of the materials including the small pamphlet the wristbands come on, and downloadable posters available at: ConsentIs.org.
Sima also created the slider images for the launch of PAVE’s new website. Not only is she incredibly talented, but she is a gem to work with!
This social advocacy campaign aims to prevent sexual violence and promote consent in schools and communities across the country. Individuals create tailor made wristbands to express why consent is important to them. Personalizing these bands by writing their own statement, participants create their own unique messages to wear on their wrists and post to social media.
Nonprofit Growth and Leadership Arlington
Another amazing woman I met at AWE is Vicki Price of Complete Back Office. She has a lot of insight into nonprofit growth and suggested I attend ON BOARD! Professional Training from The Leadership Center for Excellence, an initiative of Leadership Arlington led by Betsy Frantz. One of our PAVE Board members graciously donated my ticket to the one-day seminar – and it really helped to catapult PAVE to the next level! Following the seminar, PAVE’s board voted in our new Board President, Patrick McCoy who is a Senior Manager at Deloitte Consulting. Leadership Arlington is an incredible resource and I’m so humbled to be named an honoree this Friday, December 4 at their 40 Under 40 luncheon!
It’s amazing to see all of the wonderful gifts that have come from just one AWE meeting! Here are some ways to get involved: Attend our SafeBAE Summit and/or invite us to speak at a school or an event, email: PAVEOutreach@ShatteringTheSilence.org.
Also, have you finalized your year-end giving? Please consider a tax-deductible contribution to help further PAVE’s wonderful mission! http://pavingtheway.net/donate/. You can also invite our Donor Development Kharye Dunlap into your office to discuss corporate giving.
On behalf of the entire PAVE family nationwide, we are very grateful for the hometown support!
Abducted from a shopping mall as a teen, Angela Rose funneled her anger into activism by spearheading community action to change laws in Illinois at the age of seventeen. She created PAVE as a student organization in 2001 at UW-Madison and fostered the growth into a multi-national nonprofit. PAVE has chapters in multiple states, trains fraternities and sororities on sexual assault prevention, and convened the National Campus Sexual Assault Summit held at Georgetown Law that broadcasted live to over 300 colleges.
Angela’s work on college campuses led to an invitation to the White House for the launch of the “It’s On Us” campaign. She was asked to serve on the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault chaired by Vice President Biden. As a respected national leader with a positive and proactive approach to prevent sexual assault, she is a frequent contributor to national news including CNN, FOX, CBS, and Good Morning America.
Very inspirational and impressive! I am sorry I missed that meeting and the chance to hear Angela speak. Another go-getter Arlington woman goes for it!
She’s amazing Tara, and doing awesome work to raise awareness!