INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — If you’re at a highschool basketball sport at virtually any Central Indiana college, you may even see college students carrying black T-shirts that say “Stop the Violence” on the entrance and “Hoosiers for Good” on the again.
This is all in an effort to showcase a message of peace for the scholar’s supporters or different friends.
Tyler Harris is the manager director for Hoosiers for Good, a brand new group that companions native charities with school athletes who use their platforms to affect and amplify philanthropic work. They launched again in March and the group needed to start out an consciousness marketing campaign with Stop the Violence Indianapolis Inc. Using pupil athletes in highschool, they needed to problem younger individuals to #TeamUpForPeace by selecting optimistic alternate options to gun violence.
The concept originated from a earlier collaboration occasion with Stop the Violence Inc. the place that they had Indiana University males’s basketball gamers, Trace Jackson-Davis and Race Thompson communicate to 6 native highschool basketball groups.
“You could really tell that the high school basketball teams really were paying attention to what these two influencial athletes said and so we wanted to do something similar, but with a bigger audience,” Harris stated.
The T-shirts had been sponsored by a beneficiant donor.
The purpose is to have a collective message from pupil athletes to supporters and friends at their video games.
“Gun violence in general in Indianapolis is on the rise. In particular, teen gun violence. So, we want to use this NIL landscape, where college athletes can benefit from their name, image and likeness to create good in the community. So many people look up to these athletes and if we could get one teen to put down a gun or not resort to gun violence, potentially saving a life, it’s all worth it,” stated Harris, who stated school athletes are showcasing their assist of the marketing campaign by posting on social media.
Indiana University linebacker, Aaron Casey posted his video final month.
“I choose to team up for peace, because I know of a family who has lost a loved one due to gun violence, and no one should have to lose a family member in such a tragic and preventable way,” stated Casey, “So, I want to use my voice and my platform to make my community a safer place by influencing others not to resort to violent measures and use conflict resolutions,” Casey stated.
Julius Stephens is a board member with Stop the Violence Indianapolis, Inc. and stated marketing campaign has two phases.
Phase one was partnering with the Indiana University soccer crew to push the message throughout social media.
“With Phase 2, we got in touch with the high schools in Indianapolis and the townships. They will be wearing hoodies during warm ups with Stop the Violence also on that trying to also influence their peers to stop the violence,” Stephens stated. “We want to pick up the kids before they pick up the guns.”
He stated the marketing campaign is sort of a pilot program, they usually’d hope to department out of Central Indiana.