Women
Benefit Long After Vagina Monologues Ends
While
the annual student production of The
Vagina Monologues is
informative, inspirational, eye-opening and entertaining,
it also serves an invaluable purpose long after the curtain
closes on the performance. Funds raised through the production
help women in need of assistance.
 This year’s Vagina
Monologues, performed on February 12, raised the bar considerably
on its own fundraising success. Through ticket sales and a fundraising campaign,
Smith’s V-Day chapter raised more than $8,000 for its beneficiary, Safe Passage
Northampton, reports Camilla Claiborn ’11, co-producer of the event. It’s the
most money ever raised through the event. The Smith V-Day chapter also made a
contribution to the national V-Day campaign with funds raised.
Safe Passage is
a nonprofit organization that provides support, advocacy
and a place to live for women—and their children—who are victims of domestic abuse and violence.
“Safe Passage has been doing
amazing work in Northampton and Western Massachusetts for
years,” said Claiborn. “Its mission resonated with the mission
of the V-Day campaign and The Vagina Monologues to
end violence against women.”
The Vagina
Monologues is a play
by Eve Ensler, first produced 13 years ago, that has grown
into V-Day, an international movement focused on helping
women wherever they are oppressed. ()
Claiborn, who has been
involved in The Vagina Monologues since arriving
on campus, and for several years with her high school's productions,
has long been inspired by the play’s message, she said. “I
have always loved women and women’s organizing movements,
but through V-Day I learned to be an activist and advocate
for women’s issues. It has driven me to work toward
an end to violence against women through many avenues.”
Partly for its fundraising success,
the Smith V-Day chapter received this year’s
Student Leadership Award for Programming Excellence.
Claiborn
has confidence that her successors will continue the V-Day
fundraising success. “We hope to
raise the bar for next year’s performance,” she said, “and
the 2011-12 production team is more than capable of carrying
on this success.” |
