Advocacy Calendar
We repeat these events annually, with additional advocacy days posted on our Instagram. Fill out the "Host an Event" form on our Get Involved page to access resources for hosting one of these events in your community! We hope you use this 'calendar' to host your own advocacy days and utilize our themes, tactics, and plans to spread awareness!
September
Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. We seek to take the initiative together by spreading awareness via presentations and advocacy days. Check out organizations like the American Childhood Cancer Organization in spreading awareness about childhood cancer, engaging in discussion with our peers, and helping those fighting the battle feel less alone. So, what can you do? Host an advocacy day and start a GoFundMe fundraiser with the ACCO. Use our already-made presentation on the resources page and our ready-to-send email to educate your community about childhood cancer.
November
Autism Awareness
For Autism Awareness Day, have your school wear blue for a day, post on our social media to spread awareness, and sign a 'rainbow-puzzle' pledge to remember to advocate during this day and every day, with snacks and baked sweets to share as you all advocate! We also suggest gathering a bunch of your team to decorate the floor with chalk and have members of your community sign their name as an additional advocacy pledge! Go to our resources page for flyers!
December / March
Menstrual Equity Advocacy and Period Drive
Our discussion surrounds the stigmatization around menstrual cycles and the egregious tampon taxes on sanitary products, namely tampons and pads. By delivering presentations and and hosting a products drive, our community became united for a common cause. Presentations, a #wearred&endthestigma day, flyers, Instagram posts, fundraisers, and movie screenings are a fantastic way to unite your community with a common goal. See materials in the resource page! Also, check out organizations like The Pad Project and Project Pink Tax for more specific resources.
November / December
Host A Drive
For our starting chapter, our school annually hosted a food and clothing drive to donate to our local shelter. Public health helped to advertise this drive by posting on social media and making fliers. But, let's take it a step further! Whether a thanksgiving food drive or a holiday clothes drive, start your own drive by communicating with a shelter and seeing if they would pick up and accept your donations. Ask your community to donate to a cause that would help others, advertise it on your social media, and use the website spent.org (a choose your own path game) to present to your community why we must help those around us!
December
Holiday Mental Health
During the holiday season, we utilize social media to spread awareness about holiday mental health. Post short paragraphs of holiday traditions shared by our community to foster a united spirit. Let's
remember what we all love about this time of the year!
We hope to remind everyone to express gratitude. So, write a few things you are grateful for and reminisce on some positive memories!
That being said, remember you don’t have to always be happy during this time of the year. Your emotions are validated, and it is understandable that you can’t always focus on the positive memories. However, we hope this may bring a little joy to your end-of-year countdown!
January / March
Blood Drive
With the country being in a severe blood shortage due to COVID-19, we took it upon ourselves to creatively advocate. Click on the below image to see our video that won the New York Blood Center Competition! You can advocate by making your own presentation, hosting your own blood drive with blood centers such as the New York Blood Center, and sharing our educational video also found in The Informatives section.
February
Women's Heart Health Day
GO RED for women’s heart health month!! Educate yourselves by looking on our Instagram, pledge that you will facilitate discussion, become more aware, and advocate for a healthier world! Each member of our community wrote a fact on a heart and put them around our school to spread awareness during our Go Red Day!
February
National Eating Disorder Awareness Week
Eating disorders affect people of all backgrounds and genders. This week, a nationally recognized awareness campaign by the POTUS, strives to bring awareness to eating disorders that have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Covid-19 has only increased these statistics and let us make it part of all of our missions this week to spread awareness and make sure that those who are currently struggling know they are not alone. On day 1, we had a presentation following a discussion about myths and facts surrounding eating disorders. On day 2, we wore blue and green. On day 3, we wrote positive body and self-affirmations on ourselves (with of course, non-toxic markers).
April
Sexual Assault Awareness Month
For Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we utilized social media and we wore blue to spread awareness, and educated ourselves and our peers by engaging in discussions and debunking months about both child abuse prevention month and sexual assault awareness month. Check out our Instagram to repost!
May
Mental Health Awareness Month
Many of the topics we advocate for throughout the year surround the topic of mental health. Nevertheless, during May are actions are further empowered by our desire to eliminate the stigma surrounding mental health month. We collaborate to host S+S events (slime and snacks) so students can destress. We make balloons filled with orbeez using a water bottle to transfer the orbeez into the ballon so students can create a stress ball to destress. We make sure to practice gratitude by writing down what we are grateful for and spreading that gratitude around campus by posting what we are grateful for all over our community. We also ensure our social media presence stays active with mental health posts, such as those distinguishing between mental health and mental illness and addressing prominent causes of the mental health stigma which must be eradicated.
May
Gun Violence Awareness
We look to Students Demand Action, and host a Wear Orange and Tie an Orange Ribbon Day at our school.
Let's demand action. Whether you are tieing a ribbon with a specific name in your mind or a specific occurrence, the mere action stands as a reminder to each individual on our campus that we must take action.
Why an orange ribbon? In this, we remember every single victim of gun violence in the United States. Furthermore, Wear Orange Weekend is June 3-5, by the organization Students Demand Action. We hope you all wear orange and partake in the orange ribbon tying on Friday. Wearing orange demonstrates our collective action in ending the gun violence epidemic, honoring the lives lost to gun violence, and raising awareness about this public health crisis.