Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence

“Shine the Light on Domestic Violence” aka Turn the State Purple

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month!  Since 2008, the New York State Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence has encouraged everyone to “Shine a Light” on the issue by turning their communities purple – the color of domestic violence awareness. Through this low- or no-cost campaign, people have illuminated public buildings and landmarks as well as homes and workplaces. Police departments have displayed purple magnetic ribbons on their vehicles, and colleges and universities have lit their mascots and fountains purple. Many individuals have also sent us photographs of their colleagues and staff, family and friends, wearing purple clothing and ribbons, holding purple awareness banners, and even dressing their pets in bandannas!

This year, we’d like to encourage all New Yorkers to shine brighter than ever! So please keep doing what you’re doing, but make it even bigger. More lights. More illumination. More visual representation within your communities and workplaces. We’d like to really see the state turn purple, and we can’t do it without you. But we can help. The Shine the Light toolkit offers many resources that you can download for free – including instructions for how to light a structure purple – so please take a look. And please let us know if there are any tools you would like us to consider developing for next year! We are always here to help troubleshoot and to provide you with whatever support we can, so don’t hesitate to contact us.

We are thrilled that this campaign has grown from several dozen participants in our first year to thousands as of 2015. For ideas and inspiration, check out our Facebook photo albums to see many of the creative efforts people have made over the years. And make sure you’re included in 2016 by sending photos of your purple efforts and events to: opdvpurple@opdv.ny.gov  or by posting them to Instagram with the hashtag #ShineTheLight so we can add them to our Facebook photo gallery!

Please note that this year’s “Wear Purple Day” is Thursday, October 20, 2016. As always, we not only want you to wear purple, we want you to post and share photos of you, your colleagues, your friends and family, your community groups and organizations, even your pets, shining the light! Remember to use the hastags: #ShinetheLight, #WearPurpleNYS and #PurpleThursday.

Please join us!

We hope you will participate this year. If you have any questions or suggestions, please send an e-mail. And be sure to send us your photos for inclusion in this year’s photo album!