During freezing rain last Staurday, over 50 people gathered outside Cornell University to raise awareness about sexual assault on college campuses. The "SToPP 5k" race was organized by The New Agenda Foundation, a women's advocacy group.
"Our acronym for this run is SToPP, which means Stop, Think, Protect your Peers. So if you see something at a party, if you see a friend who needs help, you step in and you intervene," explained Amy Siskind, president of The New Agenda Foundation.
This is the fourth year the Foundation has organized races at college campuses across the country.
"Our main focus in terms of this annual event is to raise awareness of campus sexual assault on campuses, and to provide educational materials to colleges to use for their students," added Siskind.
These races are planned by The New Agenda's Young Women Leadership Council. Each college typically has two students who work to plan the SToPP 5k on their campuses. For this specific event, Victoria Watson, a sophomore at Cornell, planned this race entirely on her own.
"The New Agenda's been really close to my heart because the issues are really important that they do, and they're really good about working with campus administration and producing materials for people to really spread the word and end campus sexual assault, which is something I'm very passionate about ending. So, I really wanted to get involved to do all that I could to help out, plan this event, make it successful," said Watson.
The Foundation, created by Siskind in 2008, is dedicated to the empowerment of women by bringing about change in the media, at the workplace, at school and at home.
"Part of what we do as an organization is mentor young women and get them to be involved in leadership, and so putting together these runs—which Victoria did all the work, all we did is show up and ran and provided the T-Shirts—its part of them growing to be the leaders for tomorrow's leaders," said Siskind.
The rainy cold weather might have stopped a few people from showing up, but Watson said over 70 people signed up and almost all made it out to the event.
"It really makes me happy to see so many people come out and stand in solidarity, not only with survivors but with people who are kind of spreading the word to end it. So, allies, survivors, people that are just passing by coming together. I think that's a really powerful thing," said Watson.
Katie Colton said she felt compelled to participate in the StoPP 5k because of her own experience with assault.
"I came out here with a few of my classmates because I'm actually a campus assault survivor. It's a really important cause to me and my classmates really rallied around me. I think that we need a lot more awareness and a lot more men involved to stop it," said Colton.
To learn more about The New Agenda or to plan your own SToPP 5k, check out https://thenewagenda.net/stopp/.