Simpson College’s Sexual Assault Response Advocates (SARA) group is looking to spread awareness by planning events and getting more involved on campus as well as helping any student along the way.

SARA is made up of 10 advocates who are trained to support students who have experienced sexual or relationship violence and who are ready and willing to help students by being a confidential source.

SARA’s Jenna Pfeiffer and Max Cleveland share why they wanted to become a SARA.

“Helping people brings me a lot of joy, and when you contact the SARA’s is typically when you’re not in a good space, and I love helping people kind of work through that and get to a better state of mind so that they can continue their lives and not be as upset,” Pfeiffer said.

“I wanted to be a SARA because I felt like it would be a great group to get involved in as far as being kind of like a male representative because there weren’t a ton of them,” Cleveland said.

As the year begins, SARA is hoping to accomplish new goals and improve themselves from last year.

Cleveland explains some of the differences between the group from now to past years. 

“We’ve just been intentional about setting goals, growing, and learning from what we wish we would have done a little bit more last year,” he said. 

SARA is in the process of planning on-campus events for students to attend this semester and bringing back a few older events that were done in the past. “We’re looking at doing Take Back the Night or the SlutWalk that we used to have on campus so many years ago,” Pfeiffer said.

To get in contact with SARA, you can call their phone number that is available 24 hours or approach a SARA in person. “You don’t have to call the phone number, if you see one of us and you need to have a talk, you can pull us aside,” President of SARA, Jessica Pierce, said. “There’s always somebody on call, so there’s always somebody to talk to there.”

Many posters are hanging all around campus with the faces of all ten advocates and the phone number to contact so you know exactly who you can talk to. “That’s why our faces are on the posters. So that people, when they see us on campus, know who we are,” Pierce said.

Pierce also explains another opportunity and source that students on campus can utilize and have someone they can talk to. “Every Thursday in the counseling office, there’s an advocate from the Polk County Crisis Center, and so they are here from 10 to 12.”

SARA wants students to know that they are on campus as a resource to them and are always willing to help. “And we’re really just here to support the students who had highly traumatic events and make sure that you know that you’re not alone,” Pfeiffer said.

You can contact SARA on their 24-hour line at 515-330-6392.