1 Million Steps for RAINN: 800,000 steps complete!

DONATE AND LEARN MORE HERE: http://karma411.com/1MSteps

Between May 9 and August 31, 2011, I'm walking 1 million steps to raise $1,000 for RAINN.

I've got one month to go, and so far I've walked 800,000 steps and have raised $880. With only $120 to go, I think we can do this thing.

We had an awesome fundraiser in Ellicott City - thanks to Shane Tolson for all the hard work and for helping to raise $157 for the campaign.

I wanted to do something different with this video. I realized that I hadn't talked about why I'm doing this, so I thought that was an important question to address.

I think sex is a beautiful, wonderful thing. It sickens me that some people twist it into a method of torture that does physical and psychological damage.

What sickens me even more if that the victims often have conflicting feelings over whether it was even partially their fault. I want to say to anyone who's felt that way that no, it's not your fault. Not even a tiny bit.

There was a poster at my college that said something to the effect of, "Maybe she wore a short skirt. Maybe she went walking by herself at night in a dangerous area. Maybe she got too drunk. That may be poor judgment, but poor judgment is NOT a rape-able offense."

Only 1 in 15 rapists will ever spend a day in jail. Can you imagine if that was the statistic for any other crime?

Fortunately in all this, we have RAINN. RAINN celebrated its 17th birthday this past week, and in 17 years of helping victims, educating the public and improving public policy, here's what they've accomplished:
--helped 1.6 million people
--expanded their hotline to include an online hotline and a hotline specifically for members of the military who are assaulted
--When they started, 30% of sexual assault cases were reported to the police, and today 44% are reported.

We're making progress. We can do so much more. Wouldn't it be awesome to live in a world where nobody was sexually assaulted?

That's why I'm walking 1 million steps. $1000 is only a drop in the bucket, of course, but it's a start.

Thank you to everybody who's contributed thus far. If you haven't had a chance yet, please go to karma411.com/1MSteps and donate today.