MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Rape and Domestic Violence Information Center is ready to host its annual Walk With Survivors.
The 2025 iteration of the event will take place on Saturday, April 12, at the Morgantown Farmer’s Market on Spruce Street starting at 3:00 p.m. RDVIC Victim Advocate Kay Powney encourages Morgantown residents to take part in a fun event that will include food, music, and a chance for prizes, with tickets starting at $20 per person.
“It’s $20 for an individual, you can join as a group, you get a t-shirt with that and then food also,” said Powney.
The walk itself will take place around Downtown Morgantown and will start at the Morgantown Farmer’s Market, which is halfway up Spruce Street and across the road from Morgantown City Hall. Once all the participants are registered, they will then walk along Spruce Street heading towards the three-way intersection along Willey Street before working down High Street. From there they will proceed to walk down High Street before working their way back toward the farmer’s market pavilion.
“We are walking up Spruce Street and then around down High Street and back up to the pavilion, it’s about a mile walk,” Powney said.
Once the walk is complete, participants will then get a chance to relax and enjoy local offerings of food and live music that will take place for most of the day. With a combination of corporate and privately established teams that have taken part in this event in the past, Powney mentioned that there will be prizes that will be given out, the most notable being the biggest team. There will also be a silent auction that will take place to support the RDVIC, the first time something like that has been hosted as part of the Walk With Survivors.
“We have live music, and then we have a silent auction that’s new this year, we’ve never done that before, so we’re excited to see how it goes,” said Powney. “And we also have competitions for teams, the biggest team gets a prize, and then we also have food for everybody.”
Registration will open at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday with people of all ages encouraged to take part, with pets also allowed to take part in the walk. To recognize recent changes in statistics that show every demographic can be vulnerable to sexual assault, a display of willfully donated pieces of clothing of sexual assault survivors will be showcased under the Morgantown Farmer’s Market Pavilion throughout the event. With the Walk With Survivors going on for over 50 years in areas across the country, Powney encourages Morgantown area residents to show their support for victims of sexual assault as well.
“It spreads awareness about the issues surrounding sexual violence and to bring our community together,” said Powney. “So it’s for survivors, it’s also for the community to show that they support survivors.”