Kerri Klatt

Staff Writer

While walking through the College Center Commons at Lorain County Community College the week of Oct. 23, students were able to read stories of abuse written on T-shirts lining the center staircase. These T-shirts are part of The Clothesline Project.

   Hanging along the staircase in the College Center Commons, the project is a visual display to increase awareness of violence, sexual assault, and abuse. The T-shirts on display represent the victims and/or family member of a victim in Lorain County. The mission of the project is to educate students as well as the community on the issue of violence; a problem in all communities.

  Each colored T-shirt represents a type of abuse: The red T-shirts represent a present sexual abuse victim, yellow represents a victim of physical abuse, and the green T-shirts represents a childhood sexual abuse victim. The purple shirts represent victims of hate crimes, blue shirts represent incest victims, and the grey T-shirts represents abuse against the mentally impaired.

  The project was founded by a group of women from Hyannis, Massachusetts in 1990. The project began with 31 shirts and now has over 100 shirts on display.