VCU Hosts Event to Aid Victims of Sexual Assault

By Eric Peters

Community members joined Virginia Commonwealth University students, staff and faculty this week – the second week of Sexual Assault Awareness Month – to assemble more than 400 kits to be distributed at the VCU Medical Center to child and adult victims of sexual assault.

Held in the University Student Commons, the event was a result of the partnership between VCU and Fear 2 Freedom, a global nonprofit organization working to help victims of sexual assault. The kits include toiletries, clothing, toys and sexual assault educational information and resources.

In addition to kit construction, this week’s event featured speakers that included Reuben Rodriguez, associate vice provost and dean of student affairs at VCU; Robin Foster, M.D., director of pediatric emergency medicine at VCU Medical Center; and Rosemary Trible, Fear 2 Freedom founder.

“One of the most impressive things was the amount of volunteers, their enthusiasm and their compassion for the issue,” said Trible after the event. “Also, there was such diversity in the groups that helped partner with the Where is the Line? Club to make this event possible.”

The Where is the Line? Club at VCU is the student organization that helped organize the event. Megan Goss, a senior, is the club’s president.

“The event was eye opening and satisfying for everyone, because the volunteers were able to take real action to help people, and we knew the kits were going to people who really need them,” said Goss.

After the volunteers completed the kits, they loaded them into an ambulance and two minutes of silence was observed, “honoring the fact that every two minutes someone is sexually assaulted,” said Trible.

The kits were then delivered to VCU Medical Center.

“As we arrived at the hospital with the kits it was amazing to know that even that night they may have been in the arms of someone in need,” Trible said.

 

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