Across Ontario, October stands as Child Abuse Prevention Awareness month. Spearheaded by children's aid societies throughout the province, the campaign is marked by supporters wearing purple ribbons and spreading the facts about child abuse.
This year, the campaign's theme is "Kids shouldn't have to live with abuse" and encourages everyone to take responsibility for protecting children in their community. Kicking off the month, the Hastings Children's Aid Society (HCAS) held the 1st Annual Use Your Voice Challenge - an excellent example of public relations in the non-profit sector to create awareness for a good cause.
The event managed to creatively highlight two key components of the overall campaign: community involvement and the need for people to speak up. The message at the heart of the campign is that in order to help children, people need to learn to recognize the signs of abuse and report it. So what better way to get the community ready to do its part than to have them practice using their vocal chords, right?
The challenge was simple: Use your voice to relay the message that October is Child Abuse Prevention Month as loud as you could. The competition was both relevant and effective. A number of people gathered to compete outside of Belleville's Quinte Mall (a hub for activity in the city), including several local celebrities such as Belleville's town crier, Bruce Bedell and radio personality Scotty LaLonde from Rock 107 (winning in the end with a yell that topped at 110 decibles).
Not only was the event a huge success, it was also brilliantly orchastrated in almost every way. The emphasis on community involvement was big - prominent members from entertainment to politics took part, the location was a familiar local hotspot, other local organizations such as the Helix Hearing Care Centre helped out and even the key note speaker was from the community - a former HCAS youth. The event was creative but also simple. Not much was asked of the community other than to be there, listen and/or yell and, most importantly, to spread the message.
With this event, getting attention was paramount. Not only were those who attended able to take the message back with them, but the story was also covered on local radio stations and in newspapers (The event made it into the Belleville Intelligencer not once, but three seperate times).
A simple event that highlighted an important issue and stayed relevant to its audience - this is one campaign with some note-worthy PR behind it!
If you would like some more information on the event (including media releases and a message from the Board Chair), please check out the Hastings Children's Aid Society website.
If you want to know more about the Purple Ribbon Campaign this year, head over to Use Your Voice and spread the word!
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