Need some creative minds

[AtomicCafe]

As some people know (or not -- I've been away for a while), I work with a university LGBTQA organization, and I love coming by here to get input on some things just because my brain simply isn't creative enough to think up many good ideas.

If someone is feeling creative and wants to help out, here's what's going on: I'm in charge of educational events, and I'm working with a committee to do Day of Silence this year. They're the ones mostly in charge and have the core of the day prepared, but it's my duty to raise awareness about issues surrounding Day of Silence. Right now, I've got some ideas in my head that I'd love some help solidifying:

1. Statistics: I've got a lot of stats (mostly about harrassment, hate crimes, LGBT teen suicides, and related issues) that I'd love to find a way to present. Because our space is a large field on campus for that day, one person suggested having flags put into the ground for the number of LGBT suicides each year. Absolutely love that idea -- it's shocking the number (I have about 2,330 recorded annual suicides, need to check where I got the number from). Any other ideas for creative ways to present statistics?

2. Personal focus: Right now, however, we have about 100 sandwich boards with stories about hate crimes left over from other events that we'll be placing out to show the magnitude of hate crimes/silencing. GLSEN focuses on one person each year for Day of Silence. This year, it's Carl Walker-Hoover, and I'd like to pay a tribute to him somehow. Not entirely sure how to do this well, which is my first issue. The second issue is that I would like to tie this event closer to campus. My idea was to collect stories from students about ways they've been silenced and find a way to present those. Any good ideas for presentation?

3. Personal Expression: Since Day of Silence involves, well, silence, I'd like to find a way to allow participants and observers to express their feelings. My idea is to have a huge bulletin board up for people to post drawings, poems, etc that they do throughout the day. I also want to have a series of posters that people can write on with prompts such as "How have you been silenced?" and "What can you do the end the silence?" Any ideas on other questions? Is there a better way to do this?

4. Have any other ideas?

Like I said, I'm not super-creative, and I've been so swamped that I haven't had time to research what other groups do. I hope someone has a good idea or two! For reference, we have a pretty limited budget but a decently-sized field to work with on the center of campus. We'll have plenty of ads and passive education up beforehand. Right now, our number of participants is around 200, and we know we have much more support than that, even if those people don't choose to be silent as well.

[Miss Bubbles]

You could ask why must you be silent while others shout their words. If you want it to be closer to campus why don't you ask students to share the stories of people they have known that have commited suicide because of these things. Or share hate stories.

[malachite]

Take the stats on the hate crimes and teen suicides then write: "is this what your God wants?"