Every year between February 13th to February 21st is National Condom Week. Falling on the same week as Valentine’s Day, National Condom Week was created to raise awareness on the importance of using condoms to prevent STIs and unwanted pregnancies. Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest’s Riverside Outreach and Planned Parenthood Action Fund Riverside teamed up to host a condom crawl during this condom week.
A condom crawl is similar to a bar crawl, volunteers head downtown and pass out goodie bags with different safe sex materials. Before the condom crawl, we hosted a volunteer night to assemble the goodie bags. Seven volunteers came and we made over 150 goodie bags with external condoms, lube, internal condoms, and dental dams.
A week later, staff and volunteers went on the condom crawl. In under an hour, we gave away all the goodie bags and made some genuine connections with the people in Downtown Riverside. Local businesses Back to the Grind, Lake Alice, and Brickwood let us go inside to give out materials. We had a few people ask how they could get involved and volunteer. We also met a fellow community organizer who invited Planned Parenthood to table at their next outreach event in March.
Overall, the condom crawl went extremely well and we all enjoyed spreading awareness about condoms. Condom crawls can be hosted year-round, so if you are interested in having one, check out planned.org/condomcrawl.
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