Kelly Addington can only recall bits and pieces of the Saturday night she was raped. It was 1998, and Addington was a senior in college.
She remembers bringing her date to a bar to meet her friends and becoming completely inebriated after 4 drinks. She remembers asking her date to drive her home when she didn't feel well, but she doesn't remember the drive back to her apartment.
She recalls walking down the hallway and lying on the bed with her date by her side.
After that - nothing.
Addington and her best friend, Becca Tieder, both Florida natives, spoke to about 200 students Monday night as part of a special program, "Because She is One of Us," to raise awareness about sexual assault and campus safety.
"I just shared the most intimate details of my life with perfect strangers so I could help you," Addington said.
Addington and Tieder are the co-founders of Unite for Change, a national campaign to educate others about sexual violence and to promote sexual empowerment.
The program was dedicated to an incoming freshman, whose name was not released, who was the victim of a sexual assault in April. Because of that attack, the victim was left with severe injuries that took away her ability to see, speak or move.
"She should be experiencing college like us," said Taylor Traviesa, Student Government advertising director, of the victim. "She should be going to football games with 90,000 other fans."
University Police Officer Nicole Mallo was on hand to talk about what students can do to stay safe while at UF.
Donations were collected on behalf of the victim because her medical provider ceased to cover the expensive medical bills. According to Kelly Dunberg, the Panhellenic Women's Wellness director, about $2,000 had already been collected early in the evening. Some fraternities and sororities will be donating more money as well, Dunberg said.
"Although it was a tragedy that brought us together," Addington said, "the victim can consider herself a survivor because of the community around her."
Both Addington and Tieder stressed the importance of having a survivor mentality and being sexually empowered.
"For you to do your Gator Nation 'thang,' you need to get sexually empowered," Tieder said.
Part of becoming empowered is to reverse today's sexual culture, she said.
"One thing we need to change is how we talk to each other," she said. "When did calling your best friend a 'bitch' or a 'ho' become a term of endearment?"
And while the topics were serious, Addington and Tieder made sure to keep the audience entertained with a few lighthearted jokes.
Tieder asked the audience if they knew coercion, where someone talks another person into having sex, is a second-degree felony in the state of Florida.
"That's no good for foreplay, huh?" she quipped.
Both women reminded the audience about the seriousness of sexual assaults by sharing statistics on rape. Addington said 1 in 3 women in the U.S. are sexually assaulted.
"Every two and a half minutes, a woman is raped," Tieder said. "This year, 210,240 women are expected to become victims of a sexual assault."
Men aren't immune to sexual violence either, she said. One in 10 men fall victim as well.
Attendees appreciated the speaker's brutal honesty.
"It made it more personal," said Alex Dalton, a history student. Dalton, who took a self-defense class with her sorority, said the speaker's words were different from what she learned in the class because "they put a face to the violence."
