A. Required Information: Fill in the eight fields below.

1. Full Name: Kimra Allred

2. Major & Minor: Family Life & Human Development
3. Title of Project: Fight Life Matters
4. Expected Project Start Date (Semester/Year): Fall/2014
5. Expected Project End Date (Semester/Year): Fall/2014
Optional Information: Fill in one or both of the fields below only if they apply to your project.
1. Project Advisor:
2. Students collaborating with you on this project: Heidi Christine Hunter
B. Abstract: In approximately 200 words, provide an overview (or abstract) of your proposed Community
Engagement Experiential Education Project.

Our project is a week of suicide prevention activities to raise awareness about suicide in our
community. Suicide is a bigger issue than most people think, it effects almost everyone in one way or
another. The goal of our week is to help those struggling they are not alone and there is help. We also
hope to help those who have lost someone to suicide be able to talk about it so they can cope. The first
day we will have a booth set up to hand out fliers and other materials to raise awareness and advertise.
We hope that they will be able to get across a message to those who need it that it is alright and they
are not alone. There will also be sign-ups for the Out of the Darkness Walk. Next, we will have a banner
on campus that says FIGHT! Life Matters! Students can write messages to someone they have lost or
someone who is struggling. This will help people visually see they are not alone and people are there to
help. The last activity will be our main event. We will be going to the Out of the Darkness Walk in St.
George with the SUU team we created. This will be advertised to the whole community to help more
than just those at SUU. With these activities hopefully at least one life will be changed or saved.

C. Project Details
1. Explain how the project connects with your personal motivations and career aspirations.

One of my biggest personal motives is to make a difference in the world by helping one person at a
time. This project will give me a good step in the right direction with that goal. I will hopefully be able to
change or maybe even save a life. That will give me a great start with my goals and give me real life
experience.
I am going to school to hopefully one day be a social worker or counselor. That is why I chose to do
this project, in my field of work I will be dealing with suicidal people frequently. With this project I hope to
gain a better understanding of those who suffer from suicidal thoughts and actions, which will greatly
benefit me in my future career. I also think organizing a project like this could help me in any future career
or schooling. I will learn a lot about how to be a leader and improve upon those skills.
2. Explain how the project ties in with concepts of community engagement.
Community engagement to me means making a difference in the community you live in. Right now I
am living not only in the Cedar City community, but more specifically the SUU community. This project
ties with community engagement because I plan to get all of SUU involved in one way or another to make
a positive influence in students lives. With posters, fliers, banners, t-shirts, etc., everyone will have a
chance to become engaged in the project and therefore the community.
Also, in the Goleman talk he speaks about how important compassion is for community engagement.
That is what this project is about. I hope that everyone will learn to have more compassion for not only
those who suffer from suicidal thoughts, but everyone they come in contact with. This project is about
speaking up for those in need and making them feel they can talk about their struggles, in hopes that they
will be able to heal. To me that is community engagement; serving those around us.
3. Provide a timeline for completion of each step of the project.

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February 14- submit EDGE project proposal to Community Engagement Center

February 21- talk to CAPS about helping with the project
March 21- make sure every proposed activity is approved through the school
April 4- make a list of items we need to order for the week
April 11- come up with a list of possible companies to ask for donations
April 18- make letter and donation slips and start mailing/taking them around to businesses
May 9- talk to school about advertising in the project in the fall and establish dates for activities
June 13- cut-off date for donations, add up what we have, see if we need any other mode of
fundraising
August 1- order all advertising materials and other supplies online or wherever we need
August 9- make fliers/posters and design booth for prevention week
August 22- make sure everything we ordered has been received, if not make other
arrangements
Prevention Week
September 22- booth in student center to advertise/promote project and sign up for Out of
Darkness Walk
September 23- distribute fliers and candy with slogan around campus

14. September 24- banner on campus for student signing

15. September 26- get SUU team established for walk
16. September 27- travel to St. George for Out of the Darkness Walk with SUU team

4. Provide a budget, with projected expenses and revenues, for your project.

Expenses

Banner

$25.00

Fliers

$15.00

Candy

$10.00

Gas for driving to St. George

$20.00

Walk fee

$50.00

TOTAL

$120.00

Revenue

Donations

$100.00

Savings

$20.00

Donation to AFSP

$50.00

TOTAL

$170.00

5. Explain how your personal strengths will help you complete your project.

One of my biggest strengths that will assist me in this project is my compassionate heart. I have a
great ability to see the needs of others and I have a desire to fill those needs. That is how I came up with
my project to promote suicide awareness. I saw the need for help in friends of mine that are suicidal and
knew I had to find a way to help. This will be a great asset to me during this project because I will be able
to be more understanding and really make a difference.
I am also a take initiative girl. Once I have my mind set on something I will not let anything get in the
way. This will be very helpful in completing my project because even when obstacles come up, I will not

let them stop me. I know this is going to be a difficult project to make sure everything is done, and my
personality will greatly benefit me. Organization is also a strength of mine that I see helping me
complete the project. I live on a strict schedule and do everything in a certain order. That will be a
benefit when there are multiple tasks to be done.
6. Explain how you will overcome your personal weaknesses and outside threats to complete your
project

A weakness I have is that I do not delegate well. I have a bad tendency to do everything on my own
and not ask for help. Since I am doing this as a group project that could prove to be a problem. I will
need to rely on Heidi for help and also other outside sources. One way I will overcome this weakness is
to make a plan ahead of time of who will be in charge of what so that I will not have the tendency to do
it all myself. We will delegate out each task so that we will both do the same share of the work. Another
weakness I have is to get too stressed. I plan to overcome this by starting very early on my project and
not burdening myself with too much at once. This with talking through my stresses will help me
overcome this weakness.
A threat to this project is not getting everything approved. If the proposal does not get approved we
will have to make all necessary adjustments and try again. Another big outside threat to this project is
the school not approving us doing the different activities on the planned days on campus. In this case we
will have to choose different dates, or if necessary a different location. Money is also an outside threat
to this and probably most projects. We have set a goal of $1,000 in donations that is not money we have
set in stone. If we do not achieve that amount we may have to go earn money in other ways to pay for
the project. We could even have to push back the dates until we could earn enough money to make it
happen, or buy less advertising materials. We have allowed ourselves a large cushion in our revenue
budget to help us overcome this threat before it begins.