Mailing Volunteer
Stalking impacts 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men in the United States. Yet, there is no stalking hotline, there are no stalking crisis centers, and it is often difficult for stalking victims to understand what they are experiencing and/or know where to go for help. Our mission at the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, & Resource Center (SPARC) of AEquitas (headquartered in Washington, D.C.) is to “help the helpers,” making sure that the domestic violence shelters, police departments, campuses, and other places where stalking victims come for help and support have the training and resources they need to better respond to victims and survivors.
Brochures on stalking help victims to name, validate, and understand their experiences and provide resources to seek help, but most agencies don’t have any materials on this prevalent crime to share. That’s why SPARC sends brochures and posters – in English and Spanish – across the country. The demand for these resources is huge: since we started offering these materials in 2020, we’ve shipped over 150,000 brochures and 20,000 posters. These have reached nearly every state, territory, and Tribal Nation across the U.S. – and we receive new requests almost daily!
That’s where volunteers come in. We’re a small team, and we need help continuing to meet the demand. We are in search of a volunteer who can commit to at least 6 months of spending a few hours each week in our D.C. office packing and mailing these critical materials. Hours are flexible, and our administrative staff can work with you to find time(s) that work with your schedule.
Please e-mail info@stalkingawareness.org if you’re interested and write a short paragraph telling us why you want to help out.
Ways to Get Involved in Spreading Awareness on Stalking
- Learn more about the crime of stalking.
Educating yourself is critical so that you can effectively spread the word to others! We suggest reviewing the resources available on our website. The recorded Context is Key webinar is a great place to start, plus resources on responding to loved ones experiencing stalking. - Provide community education on stalking.
We suggest reaching out to a local domestic violence and/or sexual assault agency, as they often have staff who provide community education who you might be able to partner or co-train with. We have ready-to-lead programs available here. PTAs, lunch-and-learns, campuses, and really anywhere folks gather can be a great space to educate on this issue. - Get involved in local efforts. Typically, the stalking response is housed under the domestic violence and/or sexual violence service response. Talk to your local providers (like domestic violence shelters, rape crisis response, or Title IX offices) about what they’re doing to help stalking victims and if they have ways for you to get involved. Encourage them to seek training from SPARC.
- Share resources and materials. We have brochures and posters available, plus a robust social media campaign for National Stalking Awareness Month each January. Simply sharing this information can go a long way.
- Speak up when you see stalking minimized. We need to change our culture so that people recognize that stalking is not cute, funny, or romantic – it is dangerous. Writing a letter to the editor, commenting on social media, or otherwise expressing your views when you see stalking misrepresented in media can help affect positive change.
- Help fundraise. We’re a small project, and we’re funded to provide training to professionals in the domestic violence, criminal justice, and campus space. That means we cannot provide direct education to the general public, students, the military, or other groups without asking for additional funding. In short, there are more projects we’d love to undertake if we had more diverse funding sources.