Lambda Chapter’s Annual Signature Event

On April 19th, 2023, Alpha Phi Gamma National Sorority, Inc at the University of Illinois,
Chicago held our signature annual event, “A Sky Full Of Stars”. The purpose of this event is to raise
awareness towards Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, which is a prevalent issue in our society
today. This event also supports our National Philanthropy, The Fight Against Violence Towards Women.
As you all may know, April is National Sexual Assault Awareness Month. But even when April is over,
spreading awareness does not stop there. Our Fall 2022-Spring 2023 Event Coordinators, Michelle
“ÍLLite” Nguyen, Tiffany “siMplici+y” Thang, and Victoria “JACK/PÖT” Jackson along with our
wonderful, hardworking SFOS committee, created and hosted activities throughout the night to take part
in spreading awareness and standing in solidarity with survivors. Our SFOS committee had networked
and reached out to speakers around the Chicagoland area to come speak at our event to educate our
community and to help us raise awareness and help prevent violence in our community by educating others.

Throughout our event, we held and created three activities for audience engagement. We utilized a device
called AHASlides, led by Tam “Tsunadē” Le and Aubrey “DETØNATE” DeGuzman, to ensure that all
responses were anonymous, just in case anyone in the audience felt uncomfortable with expressing or
answering aloud. The second activity, led by Annie “daffödILL” Van and Jasmine “äMpłify” Zeng, was
the Clothesline Activity. This project first originated during the year of 1990 in Massachusetts when a
member of the Cape Cod’s Women’s Defense Agenda learned that there were 51,000 U.S. women who
were killed by men who claimed to have loved them in the United States. As a result, a group of women
created a program to speak up for these women as well as reveal the issue of violence against women.
Rachel Carey-Harper, a visual artist, wanted to honor these women and gain recognition of the issue
through hanging color-coded t-shirts on a clothesline. Our last activity, led by Alissa “Sulley” Barr, was
the Paper Links. This paper link activity is one of our efforts to address violence towards women. We are
demonstrating that we are aware of the problem and care about it. We hope to create a safe environment for survivors from all walks of life when we stand in solitary.

We need to break the silence to end the violence.