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November declared as Family Violence Prevention Month

Stettler Mayor Dick Richards declared November as the Family Violence Awareness Month.
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Stettler Mayor Dick Richards declared November as the Family Violence Awareness Month on Friday, Oct. 23 along with the Stettler and District Family Violence Prevention Committee as he signed a proclamation.

At the signing the mayor said that he realized that domestic violence occurs in the community and he thanked the Stettler and District Family Violence Prevention Committee for doing their part in dealing with issues of domestic violence.

"The proclamation of November being Prevention of Family Violence month will improve and have a positive impact on our community through awareness; that family violence does occur in our community; we are not immune to it," said Bernadette Schofer, member of Stettler and District Prevention of Family Violence committee, under the Association Of Communities Against Abuse (ACAA). "We need to make people aware that it does happen and we need to address this problem."

For the fourth year the Stettler and District Family Violence Prevention Committee will be launching the red rose campaign this year as part of their program.

Members of the committee and volunteers from the Outreach School will be approaching businesses to display, in a prominent place, a single long-stemmed rose in a vase for the month of November.

Schofer explained, "The rose campaign gives the businesses in our community a chance to pass the awareness on by displaying the rose at their business, and along with the rose in a vase, is a card that states that the rose is to commemorate victims of domestic violence who have been killed or hurt in any way as a result of domestic violence."

The business owners are asked to leave the rose displayed on their counters for a month.

They are instructed not to water the rose, so with time as the rose disintegrates and dies, it represents the victims hurt in domestic violence.

"When we distributed about four dozen roses in the first year, we received calls from various businesses in town saying that they wanted to be part of this campaign, so we are now distributing up to10 dozen roses," said Schofer.

The vases will be collected at the end of the month from the businesses and used again next year.