In case your campus is entirely abstinent, there is no need to establish a club. Feel free to stop reading at this point.
With that having been said, know that there's one way to guarantee that your school will never form a chastity club: read this document, and then hope someone else will do the work.
So, I hope that you do not delay. One girl said after hearing a talk on chastity, "I agree with everything you say. I know most of my friends would, too. It all makes so much sense. It's just that no one else I know is actually doing it. I don't know if I'm strong enough to be the first one. Maybe if a group of us all started together."
This is your job—to create a culture in which it is easy to be good, a climate favorable to purity. Here's how to do it:
How to set up a club:
1. If the desire is on your heart to set up a Pure Love Club (PLC) you need to find a faculty sponsor. So, consider what teacher or counselor would work well with students, and would want to help promote the abstinence message on campus. This person will help provide advice for your projects and outreach efforts. Let the person know that the time commitments for him or her will be minimal, and that you're just looking for someone to provide occasional input, motivation, and support.
2. Find some friends who are interested in helping, and then advertise the creation of the PLC. If you're in High School, announce the meeting over the P.A. and place ads around campus. If you're in college, you could take advantage of the school newspaper or locations where flyers are placed around campus.
High school and college life tends to be filled with commitments and activities, so do not be discouraged if the club needs to start small. It is better to have five solid members who understand the urgency of promoting purity than fifty members who join for superficial reasons. You're not trying to win a popularity contest, so do not be concerned with numbers. The level of interest will probably be the opposite of the level of need. In other words, regardless of how many people show up, there is still a tremendous need for the work of the club.
How the club works:
1. What are the objectives of a Pure Love Club (PLC)?
The mission of the PLC is to create a sexual revolution of purity. To do this, the club has three goals:
Outreach work: Spreading the message of chastity through personal example and projects.
Formation: Learning solid reasons for living a pure life, and deepening one's commitment to it.
Support: Friendship in the pursuit of purity.
2. Can the PLC be affiliated with an existing school organization or club?
Yes. Should a campus already have a similar club and not have the resources to start up a new one, you can often join the PLC to their efforts (if they wish). Affiliating the PLC with club on campus, such as SADD, FCA, etc… is perfectly acceptable. We don't care who gets the credit, as long as the work gets done.
3. How often is the PLC required to meet?
This is for each club to decide. Some clubs find it helpful to meet monthly, while others prefer bi-weekly or weekly meetings.
4. What qualifications must a student meet in order to be a member of the PLC?
Each member should maintain a chaste lifestyle, and attend the meetings.
5. What are the different offices within the PLC?
• The Advisor is an adult who will oversee the club, as mentioned above.
• The President will direct each meeting, and guide the club to accomplish their projects.
• The Vice-President will stand in place of the President when he/she is absent, and assist the President in all club activities. The VP will also keep track of any funds obtained though fundraising, donations, etc.
6. What will the meetings consist of?
The first meeting should include an explanation of the PLC's mission and purpose. It is preferable that the advisor be present at this first meeting, to share a few words of encouragement. The leader of the club should give examples of some of the projects that can be accomplished, and brainstorm with the club as to which ones sound best. Before ending, schedule the next meeting and get the contact info for each student.
Each meeting should include:
1. Motivation/Sharing: Promote chastity within the club. A person could give his or her testimony, a few paragraphs from a chastity book could be read, a video could be watched and discussed, the group could discuss a subject (ie: strategies for a pure life, how to set standards, the lies of the media, refusal skills, etc.), or you can break info male/female groups in order to address specific issues and have accountability partners. A partner is someone who knows your weaknesses, and will help you to stay strong. Partners should not be co-ed.
3. Project Planning: Decide which project will be accomplished this month. If certain members wish to speak on chastity, they can break off and talk about how they will go about this.
Not all meetings need to be so formal. Social time for hanging out, pizza, games, etc… is essential. For high school clubs, any official off-campus events must be done with permission and supervision of the advisor, if necessary.
7. How does one join the PLC?
Those who wish to join should begin attending the club meetings. At the beginning of each semester there can be a commitment ceremony, where the advisor could lead the students in an explanation of their decision, followed by a time of signing the commitment card. All students are given a copy of Pure Love, if they do not already own one.
8. What is some project ideas for the PLC?
The goal of the PLC each year is simple: reach every single person on your campus with the message of chastity. To do this, we suggest the following list of project ideas. Feel free to use them, or come up with others on your own. If you come up with any new ideas, feel free to email them to us, so we can post them for other clubs to use. All that is necessary is that the focus of the projects must always be on living a pure life. Pure Love Club has various materials that can be given out as a way to promote purity. For example: Pure Love booklets and commitment cards.
In order to do certain projects, it helps to have some money. So, you should do an activity or two to raise funds for your club for the semester. See Question 9 for how to do this. Should you do a public fundraising event, such as a car wash, make sure that you have materials on hand (posters, flyers, etc . . .) so that the customers will know where their money is going, and where they can send more, if they wish. Once you have some funds, here are some ideas:
• Youth outreach: Make arrangements for certain members of the PLC to visit a youth group, Jr. High, or High school class to speak to the students about the benefits of a chaste lifestyle. It is especially effective when college students speak in high schools classes, when upperclassmen speak to freshmen and sophomores, or any high school student speaks to a junior high. These speakers could practice their talks in front of the PLC. The advisor may be able to assist you in getting permission from the teachers or youth ministers to speak to their teens. Click here for tips of giving a chastity talk, and here for tips on becoming a chastity speaker.
• Safe sex is a joke month: Use some of your funds to promote awareness of the STD problem and the ineffectiveness of condoms. Place flyers in halls, bulletin boards, bathrooms, classrooms, etc. See Question 10 for where to obtain these materials. Have your advisor approve the materials before posting them anywhere.
• Roses for the ladies: A good way to kick off any semester is for the guys in the club to raise enough money to buy a white rose for every girl on campus (High school) or several hundred girls (college). The young men then write "You're worth waiting for" on a ribbon tied to the rose. In order to get these roses to the young women, the members of the club can get faculty permission to stay late after school, or to come before anyone else, and tape each rose to each girl's locker. In college, you may be able to put them in mailboxes, on dorm room doors, etc. You may want to write "pureloveclub.net" on the back of the ribbons, so the girls know where to go to for more information on this lifestyle.
• Adopt a Country: While Pure Love Clubs focus on spreading the message of chastity to their local communities, they also have the opportunity to support fellow teens internationally. PLC currently funds the distribution of chastity materials to students in Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Zambia, Tijuana, Miacatlan, Mexico City, Trinidad, Belize, Guatemala, Medellin, Bogota, Canada, Australia, and England. If your club would like to adopt any one of the above locations, here's what to do: As a group, select one of the places. Then, raise funds for a mailing to them. You can do this with a car wash, personal donations, taking up a collection (if approved by the principal), etc. Then, have your club faculty sponsor call 619-387-7200, and ask for Jason, who will ship the materials to the teens on your behalf. Whoever receives the materials will be asked to mail you pictures of the teens using your gifts, so that the students in your PLC will see the immediate impact of your generosity. This can also establish a pen-pal relationship between international Pure Love Clubs.
• Pure Prom: As prom approaches, members could pass out tracts on chastity, letters from future wife/husband, or make creative abstinence posters to place in the hallways. Also, talk with the administration at your school about dress codes at the dance, and playing decent music. Perhaps by having theme dance (70's, 80's, etc.), the dance will be more casual and fun, and less sexual.
• Public Awareness: Buy a billboard near campus, and use it to promote chastity. You can come up with a creative slogan, and point people to pureloveclub.net as a resource for more information. If a billboard is too expensive, then make or buy posters around campus. Members can create creative slogans such as:
"I'm not playing hard to get . . . I am hard to get."
"Prom dress . . . $250, Hair and nails . . . $90, Limo … 150$. Saving yourself for marriage . . . priceless. There are some things money can't buy."
"Marry me first"
"I'm worth waiting for."
(Regardless of what slogans you come up with, keep the message positive and not judgmental). You could also place chastity brochures or flyers around campus (i.e. "A Letter from your future husband/wife" in the bathroom stalls). If they get torn down or defaced, rest assured that your message is being heard.
As part of raising public awareness, you'll want to advertise the PLC to the school by means of banners, posters, articles in the school newspaper, flyers, announcements over the PA, having an information table at lunch, etc. Whatever means you choose, advertisers recommend using an eye-catching headline in all CAPS, keeping the ad simple, using bullet points for flyers, using endorsement quotes, and putting it in a high-traffic area.
• Media awareness: Invite the media if you are doing a significant project, because local television news stations and newspapers are eager for new stories to cover. This will serve to raise local awareness of the spreading movement towards abstinence. Like any other PLC project, ones that may attract media attention for the school should first receive approval from your school administration. Also, write letters, articles, or editorials to the local and school newspaper to raise public awareness of STDs, abstinence, or any other suitable topic. If anyone in the club has experience designing a web site, you can put one up and advertise it. See how many hits you get, and have members write their testimonies on the site. Provide links to great chastity sites. Instead of blaming the media for corrupting the youth, use the media to spread the chastity message.
• Teacher outreach: If there's a health teacher that deals with sexuality issues bring to his or her attention The Medical Institute for Sexual Health. You could purchase a video from their site, or ours, and encourage the teacher to show it in class. Who knows? Your teacher might use it for years to come. Or, perhaps you can pass it on to the speech or debate teacher to get the students involved in a discussion on the subject.
• Guest Speaker: If your club is at a high school, arrange for a mandatory, all-school assembly. If your club is on a college, you'll have more of a challenge. This is because attendance for lectures is usually optional on universities. So, you need to get a bit creative with how you market the program. For example:
First, talk with speech and debate, or English professors to see if they are willing to offer their students extra credit for attending or writing a response paper on it.
Second, smother the campus with advertisements of the talk. But do not say, "Come to an abstinence talk Thursday night at 7:00!" I'm an abstinence speaker, and I wouldn't even want to come. Nobody thinks they need abstinence because abstinence is just the absence of sex. People who are abstinent presumably think they're fine, and those who are sexually active will not give up their free time to hear someone that they imagine will only make them feel guilty. So, you need to offer them something they want, not something you're going to take away from them. To do this, get creative with your ads:
You could put posters up in the girl's dorms that say, "Hanging out, hooking up, and hoping for Mr. Right? If you're ready for a new approach and want to know where the decent guys have gone, come to …" Or, put posters on "How to have romance without regret," "The Pill and the Shot: Find out what the pharmaceutical companies aren't telling you," or "How come he got the benefits and I didn't even get a friend?"
In a guy's dorm, put posters that say, "What the condom companies don't want you to know." Or, come up with other intriguing ways to piqué their interest.
Other posters could have a collage of words, like "Friends with benefits?" and "Hooking up?" and other key words that define the current confusion when it comes to dating in college. Then you could have some catch line, like "Looking for a better way to find romance… without regret? Come to ..."
Other posters could say, "Why have most college students never heard of the most common STD? (Here's a hint: it takes the lives of 288,000 women each year – and it's not AIDS). Come find out what the condom companies don't want you to know?"
Another idea is "How to shoot your future marriage in the head. Come to ___ for details."
Or, pick some of these ideas, add your own, put it on a flyer, and stick it under all the doors in a dorm room or frat/sorority house.
Thirdly, and even better, arrange with the school to bring in a relationships (ie: chastity) speaker as part of freshman orientation. They often give the new students talks on date rape, drinking, dorm life, etc. So, try to get then to understand that the students need this just as much—or more. This will guarantee a mandatory audience, so you will be able to reach students who would otherwise never come to a chastity talk. Your PLC's advisor may be able to work with the administration to bring in guest speakers or arrange such events.
9. How does the PLC raise funds for the club's activities?
Clubs can do any number of activities to raise money to accomplish its goals. The National Abstinence Clearinghouse recommends some of the following fundraising ideas to bring abstinence-until-marriage presentations to your community.
1. There is $4.00 per student available through the federal government Drug Free Schools Program on a yearly basis. These monies can be received through your state department of education. Check with your department to see when these funds must be requested. In many states, there are also drug, tobacco, and alcohol monies available on a yearly basis through your state department of education or your department of drug abuse prevention. Both of these monies often have to be requested in the summer preceding the following school year by written request through the school superintendent.
2. Each school has student activities funds that may be available for this purpose.
3. Service organizations such as the Lion's Clubs, Knights of Columbus, and Rotary are usually interested in helping with prevention efforts in their community.
4. Occasionally there are private benefactors who have a great interest in prevention efforts and are willing to make a contribution to your efforts.
5. There are countless other way that a club can raise their own money, such as by doing car washes, making personal donations, etc. In order to keep track of these funds, the Vice President of each club serves as the treasury.
10. Where do we obtain resources on chastity and STDs to distribute on campus?
There are several great web sites where you can order info on chastity and STD's. For starters:
• Commitment cards: 1-888-291-8000
• Pure Love and Pure Womanhood booklets: 1-888-291-8000
• Info, videos, posters, brochures, etc. on STDs and abstinence:
The Medical Institute for Sexual Health
Abstinence Clearinghouse
Project Reality
Friends First
If you have any questions, please feel free to call us at 619-387-7200.