Who We Are...
Safe Campuses Now is an Athens-based
non-profit organization dedicated to crime awareness, education, and
prevention for high school and college students. Through
peer-based education, prevention, advocacy, and community service
programs, students are encouraged to take a proactive approach to
their safety.Our volunteers
are dedicated to the idea that education and awareness are paramount
in preventing crimes against students occurring both on and off
campus.
Safe Campuses Now is a
free-standing organization that is not part of the University of
Georgia or any other college or university. Our funding comes
from grants, corporate partners, and private donations. |
 Our History
Written
by Dana Getzinger Foley
President of the Board of
Directors of Safe Campuses Now.
It was an ordinary Sunday morning for my friends and me. The
night before we had attended our sorority's winter formal.
What happened next was something I never believed could happen
to me. I was a typical college coed. I never believed I could
become a statistic you hear about on the evening news. But it
did happen. |
The Past...
I was asleep on my bed when an intruder broke in through a
sliding glass door. I woke up with a pillow over my face. I
fought the pillow off and felt a sharp punch in my stomach. It
was a knife, which punctured my aorta.
I remember lying on the floor while one of my roommates held my
hand begging me not to die. I recall a doctor raising my eyelids
and hearing a reassuring voice say, "She's still with us. "It
grew harder to stay in tune with the sounds around me. I was
afraid to fall asleep. The next thing I remember was my parents'
voices and the comfort I felt when they squeezed my hand. I had
just undergone extensive surgery to save my life.
Although I fully recovered, coping with fears and memories of my
attack caused me enormous anguish when I returned to the
University of Georgia. Why was I the victim of such an isolated
incident? However, my anguish turned to anger when I learned I
was one of five students attacked during a two-month period all
within a mile of one another. The other girls had been raped,
sodomized, and one girl was stabbed in the back. Weren't
students made aware of crimes occurring around them? Why did the
statistics I was shown the following year not include any of our
attacks? Why aren't crimes against students publicized?
While my attack may sound violent and brutal, it's an
unfortunate reality of the society we live in. Many people have
had this experience, and the reason I am writing about it now is
because I want college students to realize how vulnerable they
really are.
A New Beginning...
These realities in our society do not make them acceptable. The
false sense of security students live under is perpetuated due
to the fact that crimes against students are severely under
reported.
A year after my attack, I testified before Congress in support
of The Student Right t o Know and Campus Security Act,
affectionately known as "The Clery Bill." This legislation makes
it mandatory for colleges and universities to report their crime
statistics. Jeanne Clery was murdered in her dorm room at Lehigh
University. She was strangled and tortured to death.
While in Washington, I met the Clerys along with many other
parents who all wore buttons with pictures of their children who
were murdered at college. All I could picture was my parents
wearing buttons with my picture on them. I suddenly realized how
fortunate I was and how serious the problem of crime at college
had become. This trip to Washington fueled my motivation to
start Safe Campuses Now.
Now, ten years later, SCN has become a national non-profit
organization dedicated to making students more aware and
prepared to avoid and deter crime. Through our appearances on
various shows and news programs, Safe Campuses Now has become
the expert on crime against students in the off-campus student
community. "Safe Campuses Now is a student organization actually
making a difference," stated the Red & Black, an independent
newspaper that serves the UGA community. |
|
 Back to
top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
