The Gender Equity Center, with the help of Student Affairs groups Health Promotion and Wellness and Stand for State, is hosting “Turning the Red Zone Green” on Wednesday, August 30. The event will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the HUB and aims to prevent sexual violence on campus.

Participants  will be able to use guided stations to talk to several representatives from campus organizations dedicated to preventing sexual violence. Through this experience, participants will learn about the many valuable resources and programs are available at Penn State for students.

One target of this event is to significantly decrease the risk of sexual violence, which is more common in the first six weeks of a new academic year, according to Gender Equity Center programming coordinator Erin Farley.

“The first six weeks of the fall semester, also known as the ‘red zone,’ is a time in which incidents of sexual violence at college campuses spike across the nation,” Farley said in a press release. “Our goal at Penn State is to talk about the ways that we as a community can reduce the prevalence of sexual violence and encourage students to look out for one another.”

A unique part of this event is participants will be able to ‘turn Penn State green’ by throwing darts at red balloons filled with green color. This activity will hopefully help students remember the information they learned at the event in a creative way.

Betsy VanNoy, program coordinator for Stand for State, believes the name “Turning the Red Zone Green,” holds an important message.

“Imagine a map of our campus where acts of violence are represented as red dots, and green dots represent moments when people speak up to prevent violence,” VanNoy said in a press release. “Our goal is to make the green dots outnumber the red dots and ensure that less people get hurt.”