The Walk A Mile in Her Shoes event hosted by Alpha Chi Omega took place Wednesday evening on Central Campus. Approximately 72 people participated in teams of six in a relay race around campus wearing high heels, the majority of runners were men who duct taped the high heels to their feet.
Abbey Quaid, the vice president of philanthropy for Alpha Chi Omega, planned the event to bring awareness about domestic violence and to support local nonprofit organization Assault Care Center Extending Shelter and Support. ACCESS provides various resources to domestic violence victims, including housing, youth advocacy programs, support groups, community education for schools, listening support advocacy, crisis lines and crisis response services.
Quaid said it went better than expected and could not ask for anything better. She said that through donations and ticket sales, Alpha Chi Omega raised a total of $4,566, which will be donated directly to ACCESS.
Reagan Duwe, a senior studying kinesiology and a member of Alpha Chi Omega, has wanted to do this event ever since she first saw other chapters do it and saw coverage on social media.
Duwe said she likes to think about what it is like to be in other people’s shoes, and this is a great way to provide some perspective. She said something as silly as men running in high heels can jumpstart an important train of thought about the different things people go through.
Irman Ganibegovic, a freshman in engineering, was one of the runners in high heels.
“I was nervous to see if the heels would break or something, but when you start getting into it, really sprinting it was easier,” Ganibegovic said. “I was running on my toe. It wasn’t too bad in the end, it was really fun.”
Angel Figueroa, a junior in construction engineering and member of Triangle Fraternity, also ran in the relay race. While it was meant to be completed by teams of six, Figueroa did the whole mile in heels by himself, racing against two teams.
“For the first checkpoint I was in first place,” Figueroa said. “After that, I stumbled a few times and picked up the pace and made it second place.”
Drew Dziewiatkowski, a sophomore in animal science, witnessed the planning process that went into the event.
“[Quaid] has been running around like a madwoman, going to Goodwill and buying size 11 high heels so they would fit the boys,” Dziewiatkowski said. “She’s definitely put in a lot of time and you can tell she’s passionate about it.”
A total of 241 tickets were sold with 252 donors and a total of 493 people supported the event.
“It’s really cool to see a good turnout of people who are supporting domestic violence awareness,” Duwe said. “People are standing in solidarity, running or walking in solidarity.”
