Voorhees Expo Links Students, Community to Abuse Prevention Resources

Healthy relationships were the focus at Voorhees University, where students and community members found practical help for abuse prevention, victim support and safety planning at a resource fair designed to connect people with services they can still use after the tables come down.

The Healthy Relationships Expo & Resource Fair was held April 8 on the Denmark campus in Bamberg County, bringing together more than 50 student participants along with faculty, staff and neighbors. The event featured 10 vendors, including SC VINE and the South Carolina Department of Corrections, the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office, the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office and its Department of Crime Victim Compensation, CASA Family Systems, Tiger Plus, SCCADVASA and the Barnwell County Sheriff’s Office.

Jamal DeWalt, project director of Campus Against Dating Abuse, said a domestic violence survivor shared a personal story during the expo, giving the program a direct human focus. Students also took part in discussions about healthy communication, boundaries, consent and bystander intervention, turning the fair into more than a display of brochures. It became a place where young adults could learn what abuse can look like and where to go next for help.

That matters in Bamberg County, where access to support can depend on knowing the right office, the right advocate or the right referral before a crisis deepens. SCCADVASA, which says it has 22 member organizations providing direct services to survivors across South Carolina, reports that 42.3% of South Carolina women and 29.2% of South Carolina men experience intimate partner physical violence, sexual violence and or stalking in their lifetimes. Its 2023 media fact sheet also lists an average of 32,563 intimate partner violence cases each year in the state and 13,586 crisis calls.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes intimate partner violence as a serious public health issue and says healthy relationships and community-level prevention are key to reducing it. Voorhees’ event put that public-health approach into practice by linking prevention education with agencies that can answer legal, safety and compensation questions for survivors and families.

The university’s Rural Community Development Institute, established June 9, 2022, has also been aimed at improving quality of life in Denmark and Bamberg through the university’s Becoming Beloved Community Initiative and the South Carolina Institute of Innovation and Information. At its launch, officials tied that work to broader rural needs, including broadband, workforce development, housing, health, transportation, food disparities and underemployment.

The expo overlapped with Voorhees University’s Founder’s Week, which ran April 8 through April 12, reinforcing the school’s role as a community institution in a county where prevention, counseling and victim-services connections can shape safety long after the event ends.