First and foremost, THANK YOU to all staff who participated in the 3rd Annual Drive Out Domestic Violence campaign this past July! 

We had incredible results for this unique event, which has a dual focus of raising funds while also building awareness about the issue of domestic violence in our community.

We are proud to report that this year's event raised over $62,000 for Children’s Home Shelter for Family Safety! 

In addition to the dollars raised, #driveoutdv became a movement even beyond our local market. In addition to asking our wonderful staff to participate, we also recruited a number of individuals who voluntarily served as Ambassadors for the cause. These Ambassadors included well-known individuals within the Sioux Falls region who also have a significant social media following on at least one or more social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn). We had approximately 40 Ambassadors in total - some you may recognize, including:

• Chelsea (Houska) DeBoer, Public Figure/TV Personality on MTV's Teen Mom 2
  
• Paul TenHaken, Sioux Falls Mayor
  
• Sanaa Abourezk, owner of Sanaa's Restaurant
  
• Melissa Johnson, owner of Oh! My Cupcakes
• Laurie Karlson, owner of Lauribelle's Boutique
• Addie Graham Kramer, owner of The Event Company
• Loren McManus, Past Sioux Falls Police Chief
  
• Dakota News Now personalities including Vanessa Gomez, Kelsie Passolt, Beth Warden, Tyler Roney, and others
• Results Radio DJs including Ben & Patty (97.3), Natasha (104.7), Danny V & Jeff Harkeness (102.7), and others 
• and many more! 

In total, our social media impact exceeded 10.3 Million Impressions!

Traffic to our event web page skyrocketed and was the #1 most-visited page on our website during the campaign. In addition, our Facebook followers to our Children’s Home Shelter for Family Safety Facebook page increased by 34% and our Instagram followers (@chssdorg) increased by in incredible 275% - and both continue to grow! Twitter and LinkedIn followers also saw increases in followers by 8% and 4%.  

This added exposure opened up important conversation. Some comments we were able to trace on social media include: 

This is amazing Chelsea!! As a kid our mom had to move us kids to children’s inn in the middle of the night cuz her boyfriend tried to kill us all! Children’s inn was a life saver for all of us!❤❤

As a DV survivor I thank you for helping bring awareness.❤

This was my married life. Thank you for speaking out and bringing more of an awareness to this.

As a dv survivor, thank you! Looking into this right now💗

Children’s Home Shelter for Family Safety helped my family many years ago. I am glad they are there to assist Sioux Falls and the surrounding towns 💜 Just ordered my tee

Amazing!! I'm sold finally.. seen well over 20 of these post.. ordering shirt NOW! It matters!!

I didn’t even know about this! Thanks for educating me! I’m glad there are resources like that here.

We also had at least three Ambassadors who shared personal stories of domestic violence, two of whom had never spoken publicly about their experiences until this campaign, and one Ambassador, who was contacted by a victim of domestic violence, who then reached out to us for assistance.

We continue to have HOPE in this campaign as we work to educate our community about the issue of domestic violence!

Thank you for being part of it!