When I say that I run social media pages for sexual violence, people usually say “ohhh,” and pretend like it doesn’t sound crazy. Some people choose to use me as “an interesting or obscure hobby” on Human Bingo. It isn’t what people would expect a sophomore in high school to do, especially not willingly, but I love every minute of it.

I’m concerned about sexual violence because it happens all too often, and very rarely do people actually talk about it. Sexual violence happens everywhere, even in our perfect town of Pella, and victims usually stay silent in fear of backlash.

I get to work on social media pages for Iowa high school students to spread awareness and prevent sexual violence in our schools. My best friend and I run an Instagram (@ZeroSVIowa) that we post on three times a week, but our group also run a Twitter, Facebook, and even our own website. My main job, however, is to write blog posts for the website. As a writer, I’ll take any chance I get to write until my fingers fall off.  It has to be sexual violence related, but it’s such a broad topic that I don’t feel trapped.

I got started at a St. Patrick’s Day pancake breakfast. It was for my little sister’s service project, but in the end it was worth joining her when we were offered a chance to be in YMAC, the group that runs the ZeroSV pages. Becoming a member of YMAC and having the privilege of running and working on the ZeroSV accounts is one of the best things I’ve ever done. As dark as it sounds, it’s something that needs to be done, and I enjoy doing it. I’m making a positive difference in the world and all it takes is a couple apps on my phone and meetings twice a month.