REVOfest 2016 Stands with Freeset

Spring is one of the most memorable seasons for students. It is a time when the campus community enjoys many festivities, including the highly anticipated REVOfest. On Sunday, May 15, students, faculty, and staff members gathered at the Campus Center for the REVO Stuff Sale and campus club food exhibitions. Participants browsed the REVO thrift shop for treasures. Clubs dished up ethnic foods and beverages. Later that evening, over 300 people gathered in the Pacific Auditorium for the highly anticipated annual REVO fashion show.

Five teams comprised of 11 PUC student designers debuted fashions created from recycled materials. The designers where given the choice of five materials to craft their fashion lines from utensils, plastic, paper, cardboard, and cups. The designers created works of art which were model by PUC students. Cardboard, designed by Hannah Barnes, Aaron Hernandez, and Taylor Pittenger, won People’s Choice award. Bree Ali Mary and Suzie Deberry won Judge’s Choice for their recycled paper line. The show was a huge success, raising over $2,000 for REVO. Overall, REVOfest was an uplifting event for the campus and the local community to celebrate a noble cause.

For the past eight years and counting, REVO, PUC’s student-led international philanthropy movement, has selected an international project to support with fundraising and awareness events. This year, students chose Freeset, a nonprofit fair trade business providing job opportunities for women hoping to overcome sex trade captivity. In August 2015, a group of PUC students and professors traveled to Kolkota, India, to visit the organization’s headquarters. After a month of learning the state of reality for many local women, countless students were inspired to partner with Freeset to help free women from sex slavery.

REVO president Evelyn Marquez, one of several students who attended the trip to Kolkata, spearheaded the movement at PUC. “These women didn’t have a choice, but Freeset created the opportunity for them to have one,” Marquez explained, “A choice to experience freedom.” Since fall quarter, REVO teamed up with several clubs to raise awareness for Freeset through a t-shirt drive, “A Night in India” banquet, several sex-trafficking awareness forums, and many other events. Combined with REVOfest, the club’s awareness efforts raised $10,000, which will be used to employ 27 women at Freeset.

“For me, the most rewarding thing is knowing that it’s real,” said Trent Broeckel, senior European history major and communications minor. “This wasn’t just a class assignment with fake goals just to make the grade. Sex trafficking is real, and REVO is real. The $10,000 we raised together is real. The 27 women who can now stop being trafficked and work more sustainable jobs are real.”