Meeting tonight at UVA to discuss recent suicides by young gay people

I am passing along to you information about an important meeting tonight at 7:30 pm at the University of Virginia to talk about the recent spate of suicides by young gay people at several schools across the country. All of these are heart-breaking. The meeting will be in the Ballroom at Newcomb Hall. I plan to be there.

Here is more information from Rachel Farr, one of the organizers:

Many of you have recently heard about the growing number of LGBTQ youth who have taken their own lives as a result of ongoing and severe victimization and bullying. The stories of Seth Walsh, Billy Lucas, Asher Brown, and Tyler Clementi, in photo above, (among others, see below) are tragic and heartbreaking. These suicides represent a crisis that we can prevent in our community.

[Here are links to information about each of these incidents]:

Seth
Billy
Asher
Tyler

This coming Thurs, Oct 7, at 7:30pm, please join the discussion about how to help. If you or groups you are involved with are discussing how to help prevent bullying and youth suicide and want to bring about change in our community, join us in this community-wide effort.

Many of us are currently working to organize a vigil to honor the lives lost. We are making a commitment to end the victimization of LGBTQ youth and to reaffirm the importance of treating others with dignity and respect. We want your ideas, so we welcome and encourage everyone to attend this informational meeting on Thurs to plan the vigil.

The meeting will be in the Ballroom on the 3rd floor of Newcomb Hall on the UVA campus. There is inexpensive parking in the UVA bookstore parking garage (right next to Newcomb).

Please forward this announcement widely and invite everyone you know. We hope to reach many in our community at UVA and beyond, including teens, parents, teachers, school administrators, and others who work directly with youth.

Thank you and please let me know if you have questions. Let's create change,

Rachel Farr
rachel.farr@gmail.com

Important information that could save your life in Charlottesville

This was brought to my attention by Janice Dean in response to my post about drinking at the University of Virginia. She contributed this as a comment earlier today, and this is important information so I want to make sure you see it:

- There are no charges for services provided by the Charlottesville/Albemarle Rescue Squad.
- Parents will only be notified if student is under 18 or if they might not make it.
- Police will respond to a 911 call, but only to ensure safety, not to report or arrest anyone.
- Bringing a friend to the hospital will not put you at risk for punishment if you are underage. It is better to come in so the doctors know exactly what happened; they will be better able to treat your friend!

The culture of drinking at the University of Virginia: Enough already?

This is important, and I hope you will keep reading.

Yesterday I went for a walk on the grounds at the University of Virginia and I came upon these flags (in photo) planted in the lawn in front of the library. I was dumbstruck by what it represents.

Each flag is planted in the ground for a young adult who drank himself or herself to death on a college campus this past year.

There are 1,700 flags on the lawn. The carnage is higher than in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The flags were put there by the National Gordie Foundation. This Thursday is National Gordie Day, commemorating Gordie Bailey, who died from alcohol poisoning in 2004 after a drinking binge that was part of a fraternity hazing initiation at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Gordie had been on campus only three weeks.

Tonight, the National Gordie Foundation will be showing a film, Haze, in Newcombe Hall at 7:30 pm. The film is free. If you are a student, please go, and tell your friends. The film will be shown again Thursday at 7:30pm in Wilson 402.

Let's stop pretending: Drinking is a plague here at the University of Virginia. I am a recent newcomer to Charlottesville, and I am overwhelmed by the brazen open drinking by students, and the culture of drinking that is pervasive in this community.

Our church parking lot, back alley and front yard are full of cans and bottles every Sunday morning. Our Sunday morning ritual begins by cleaning up the mess; we sometimes need to hose down the steps from the vomit.

And that is only the physical residue. I am told the emergency rooms at the UVa Medical Center and Martha Jefferson Hospital regularly receive students who are close to death from drinking.

This should be unacceptable to all of us.

It is way too easy to get cheap beer near the places where students live and study. A half-block from St. Paul's is Cohn's Corner, a convenience store with cheap beer, and lots of it. Walk inside the door and you will see suite-case size cases of Bud Lite stacked high for sale. I checked the prices Monday: A 24-pack costs $17.89, less than a dollar a beer. A sign proclaims that if you buy 10 cases you will get a $1 off per case. Could we find more ways to encourage binge drinking if we were trying?

I am no prude or angel on this subject. I enjoy beer and wine, and when I was a college student at UCLA I availed myself of the many opportunities for free beer at "keggers" all over Westwood. I don't think I ever bought a beer my entire four years at UCLA. I didn't have to; it flowed free. I am not claiming my generation was any better, and maybe we were a whole lot worse. It was part of college life, everyone did it, no one seemed to say anything otherwise.

But is that any reason to allow this slaughter to continue? Is that any reason to look the other way as multi-national corporations get rich by providing cheap beer at the expense of the health of young lives?

I am not sure what we can do about this. Maybe you have some ideas? If you are a student, please think about this. Go to the film, take a friend with you. If you work for UVa., maybe it is time to talk with the Administration about being more forceful on this topic. If you work for the local media, maybe you ought to cover this story and not let up. If you are a lawmaker, maybe it is time to take a hard look at the availability of beer so close to university campuses and fix a few laws.

Maybe it is time for all of us to stop thinking that this is an acceptable part of "life on the Corner" in Charlottesville. It is time to say enough of this.

Welcome University of Virginia students! Please join us Sunday and bring your families too!

If you are returning to school, or you are a new First Year, we would love to get to know you. St. Paul's Memorial Episcopal Church has a vibrant program for University of Virginia students and we are conveniently located on "The Corner" across from the Rotunda.

Indeed, a major mission of this parish is to serve the University of Virginia community. We believe in the full inclusion of all God's people at the Holy Table; come as you are, with your faith, your doubts, your questions.

Please join us Sunday for one of our worship services. We have a traditional service at 8 am in the chapel; at 10 a.m. we have a choir and a family-friendly worship with child care available. Our 5:30 pm service (in the chapel) is particularly designed for University students, and beginning next Sunday (Aug. 30) we will be serving a free dinner for students following that service.

Do please come Sunday, check us out, and introduce yourself. And if members of your family are helping to get you settled, do please bring them, too! We'd love to get to know you and your family.