University of Idaho freshman Patrick Paulus spent Sunday afternoon in the Storm Cellar in downtown Moscow to advocate for violence prevention and the power of peer and cultural influence to prevent dangerous situations.
Paulus participated in a photo shoot and party held by Green Dot, a nationwide campaign with a strong presence at UI through the Dean of Students Office’s and Violence Prevention Programs. Palouse said he thinks Green Dot is a positive and beneficial program and he attended the party to spread awareness of Green Dot.
“I wanted to help be able to spread the image, and figure if I can be in that myself it’s a little bit of extra fun but it does help spread the positive message,” Paulus said.
The Green Dot program aims to teach students how to intervene in dangerous situations. Green Dot held a photo shoot and party on Sunday to take photos and capture stories from participants to help promote the program.
Rio Harris and Jacob Hruska are campaign engagement strategists for the Green Dot program, and they were in charge of putting on the event. Harris said his position includes responsibilities such as running Vandal Green Dot’s social media pages and deciding what campaigns they’re going to launch.
The party had music and snacks for participants and attendees were invited to wear whatever they wanted to the photo shoot.
“We wanted it to be fun, kind of like a party, so that’s why we have all the music,” Harris said.
Photos and videos were taken and interviews were done from the participants to use as promotional material for the Green Dot program.
“We’re interviewing them and talking about why they think the Green Dot program is important and what preventing violence in the world means to them,” Harris said.
Hruska said the event was held to get the Green Dot supporters together and remember why they’ve made a commitment to bystander intervention.
“Ultimately, it’s going to provide us with a lot of marketing materials, but it’s more about gathering the culture together here today to just get all these people who bought into Vandal Green Dot to remember why they are and get excited about it,” Hruska said.
The Green Dot program on campus started almost two years ago, Harris said. Green Dot holds trainings throughout the academic years and encourages UI students to attend them to learn how to become an effective bystander.
“Green Dot is a program that is evidence proven,” Harris said. “It was in some high schools in Kentucky for five years and they tracked the violence levels, and it decreased the levels of violence that the program was in by more than 50 percent.”
At UI, Green Dot is led through Virginia Solan, coordinator of Violence Prevention Programs.
The party and photo shoot was held in a photography studio in a room of the Storm Cellar. The location was chosen because of the photography studio and because the owner of the Storm Cellar, Austin Storm, volunteered the store for the event, Harris said.
“He agreed to do it for free, because he really believes in the world being a safer place and people being inclusive,” Harris said.
Alejandra Maria Aguirre of Alejandra Maria Photography volunteered to take promotional photos for the event. Aguirre said she was excited about the finished product.
“I think we’re going to get a really cool kind of cohesive, polished-looking little magazine,” Aguirre said. “I think it’s just going to be a really nice way to represent what they’re doing and put some more awareness out there and kind of make it an aesthetic pleasing kind of thing where people want to look at it and want to know more and they’re like, ‘Oh, how can I get involved?'”
Corey Bowes can be reached at [email protected]