Brand · Advocacy · Experiential · 2024 – Ongoing
A student-founded organization at UMD built around one uncomfortable truth: leaving isn't a single decision.
At the end of my freshman year, when I had officially left my 4-year-long abusive relationship, I was watching Maid on Netflix. There's a scene where one of the characters says it: on average, a person goes back to their abusive relationship seven times before leaving for good. I had gone back multiple times, with associated feelings of shame and embarsessment. Hearing that statistic said out loud didn't fix anything, but it made me feel less alone in my feeling.
In that moment, I realized, that same feeling is what I wanted to give people. Not information. Not a hotline. That specific feeling of not being alone.
The Petal Project at McKeldin Mall, Spring 2024.
Three months later, my co-founder Faith and I met on a bus to a convention. During that bus rise, we realized we'd been through versions of the same thing, and so had a lot of other people on our college campus. We came to the conclusion that the conversation around relationship abuse needed to exist somewhere larger.
The question I kept coming back to was not how do we inform people. It was how do we make it feel worth showing up.
We founded The Petal Project, a advocacy organization aiming to build community to combat relationship abuse in young adults. Each spring, we run six weeks of events, workshops, and digital content designed to reach people before they need formal resources, and lead those who do to the information they desire.
At its conception, the original plan was one large event on UMD's McKeldin Mall. The problem: nobody knew who we were yet, and that was a gamble we couldn't afford.
In order to spread our programming and our grant budget, we instead moved to a six-week campaign with 3 smaller events per week. Each week opened with something higher-traffic and lower-stakes, then closed with more educational programming. This gave people 18 chances to show up to engage with us. The fun event was the introduction, and the educational content was the destination.
Documentation from the campaign weeks.
We raised over $5,300 through the Do Good Institute, the Pepsi Grant, and the Honors College Grant. Writing those proposals forced us to say what we were building more precisely than we had before.
The org has since been recognized by the Allstate National Youth Service Summit, UPenn Our Voices Summit, Catcalls of NYC, and earned multiple University of Maryland awards. None of those were things we set out to earn, they felt more like the organization speaking back to us in its success.
Year 1 was deliberate but not yet systematized; we made structural decisions early, built a coalition of close friends and peers, and figured out the process while still inventing it. What we didn't have yet was a consistent way to repeat it.
Year 2 was that: a 26-person board with defined roles, a more defined curriculum, a loyal following that showed up on its own, and a waitlist of other orgs wanting in.
Advocacy design has a default register: serious, institutional, heavy on PSA energy, which was something I saw in many social good clubs on campus and was trying not to emulate. If the brand felt like a warning label, we would lose the people we most needed to reach.
So the brief I gave myself was: warm the way a person is warm. Present, not fragile. Something you would actually want to wear or carry around campus, regardless of gender or level of involvement with the organization.
I wanted to give The Petal Project a specific voice that I drew heavily from companies that focus on human-to-human connection (largely We're Not Really Strangers). I wanted a voice that wasn't mushy or coddling, and neither cold nor blunt, but real, vulnerable, and honest in the way that real people are.
The six-petal motif was made to represent the statistic that started it all; if we can help reduce the number of times a person returns to their harmful relationship, even by just one below the average (7), then our job as an organization is done.
I was actually very lucky in that the logo came to me very easily (one major development cycle)! Going into it, i thought about how easily a flower shape can read straight into precious, delicate, or overtly feminine. While women make up the majority of victims, I did not want to exclude from our other audiences in spreading our message.
What I ended up designing was a flower that I felt could transcend object placement to digital placement, as well as be attractive to both female and masculine audiences.
Pink can go wrong very fast, the original signature pink was much, much lighter and pastel, and also paired with a light, breathy font. This resulted in a mix that created a feeling way too whimsical for the subject I wanted to tackle (and additionally was just generally poor contrast).
Getting the right version meant darkening it to a more mature coral, grounding it with a mono type pairing, and letting saturated, bold colors juxtapose with hard blues and whites. This allowed each piece of content to make a concrete visual impact, heavy enough that felt appropriate for our mission.
Type system: Jost for headers and body, DM Mono for labels. Palette anchored in deep coral, dusty rose, and warm cream.
The experiences we were cultivating needed to tie in both the physical and digital space; meaning guidelines were not just visual, they were behavioral. Everything published under The Petal Project name had to meet the same standard, which meant documenting that standard down so anyone joining the team could pick it up without a briefing from me.
Some of the signature motifs included video footage running as backgrounds on still graphics; every flower or takeaway item having a stamp or sticker, and custom Petal Project zines and notecards created for each live event.
This attention to detail was about what the brand communicated without saying anything; if we handed out bent bouquets, the implicit message was that we did not care about the details. We evaluated every booth setup before attendees arrived, every time, and looked for easy ways to elevate our experiences (ie: a simple ribbon around the bouquet).
Every week, we took that week's theme and educational content and adapted it into a zine: printed, folded, and handed out at the live event we were holding (around 200 zines per event!). They were something physical that people could take with them, read later, or leave on a table for someone else to find.
The zine format made the content feel like something you chose to engage with. Someone could pick one up on a Wednesday and read it on Friday.
Each zine followed the weekly theme. In Year 1, the stages of an abusive relationship. In Year 2, a different relationship type each week. The research fed directly into what went on the page.
Prompt notecards were our most common form of live event engagement; attendees filled out notecards in response to prompts about relationships, community, and what it means to feel supported (each prompt changing per event/weekly theme). We posted these to the account and archived them on the website.
We've collected over 1000 responses so far!
A real person wrote that. Someone who showed up that week, stood at a table, and had something to say.
Posting them gave the account something no amount of designed graphics could: proof that people were actually there, and that what we were making space for was landing with our audience.
If the account only posts crisis content, you lose the people who are not ready for that yet. We built @petalprojectorg around a different ratio: community first, education adjacent. Things that feel worth sharing before they feel necessary.
Per each week, theme release + educational content came first; event details were buried behind the slides in order for audiences to move through the knowledge first. Photo event recaps went up immediately after events throughout the week, which gave time for our videographers to edit a larger recap video that would be posted at the very end of the seven days.
This format would then repeat, giving us consistent engagement, energy, and anticipation for the length of the six week curriculum.
Education first, event details buried behind the slides. Engagement was intentional — only curious people made it through.
Posted immediately after events while excitement was highest — before the full edit was done, keeping the account active and responsive.
Same format, same energy, every week. After a few weeks people started waiting for us. Consistency became its own trust signal.
Pass the Petal was a video series to advertise Tunes and Ties ↗ at the end of the 2025 campaign. The concept was a twist on the Disney Channel "Pass the Plate" format: the video opens with UMD club founders holding a bouquet and passes it to club representatives, each sharing what their community has meant to them. It gave each org something to share with their own audience, and it said something true: that the people around you are part of how you heal.
Open in Google Drive ↗Turning around six weeks of content meant detailed shot lists, organized file handoffs, and consistent naming. Every system was designed to get content from event to post as fast as possible with our designers and videographers.
The visual direction for video was specific: airy, light, hopeful, sunny; young and friendly without being naive. We wanted the recaps to feel like something you would want to watch even if you had not been there, and to make people feel like they had missed something worth showing up for next week and encapsulated the true energy that was felt during the live interactions.
During the 2025 campaign, a full documentary was developed structured around the six-week arc from the planning phase through the sprint.
Faith and I's first step was identifying how we wanted to frame such a long, consecutive project: Each year's overarching theme entirely guided the story we told each week of the campaign. Each week had a focus, and the themes were designed to tell a complete story together. Someone who followed the whole campaign moved through a progression, not just a series of separate events.
Year 1 followed the stages of an abusive relationship: how it starts, what it looks like from inside, how you begin to move through it. Year 2 zoomed out to the full ecosystem of relationships around a person: self to self, self to partner, self to family, self to friends, self to community. The idea was that healthy relationships don't exist in isolation.
Both years ended with a conclusion week. Year 2's centered on branching out: rebuilding a support system after isolation, and how community is a form of protection.
Every week ran on three layers: a large main event, an asynchronous smaller activation, and an opt-in workshop. The logic was layered access. Someone not ready for a workshop could still take a flower, and someone curious could stop at the smaller activation.
This also gave us a chance to allow our team breaks, and accommodate for busy executive board schedules with school running concurrently.
Not every activation required us to be there. Chalk prompts, flower buckets, note-writing stations: these extended the reach beyond our hours (often being up from 8am-5pm) and left marks that stayed. While we weren't physically able to be there, the campus became part of the campaign.
Week activations: high-visibility tabling combined with smaller interactive installations throughout campus.
Especially for larger events, the physical was its own design problem. With large crowds and a booth that had both an activity and a flower/item giveaway, I knew that large queues were bound to form. In order to accommodate this, I ideated on what a split flow would entail.
Separate tables meant two things could happen at once, meaning shorter queues. And where there was a queue, team members were stationed in line to ask trivia questions, give out information on the org, and entertain those waiting.
We also thought hard about location: foot traffic patterns, line direction, where the sun would be (especially for food/beverage giveaways), and how close we were to building entrances. All of it got walked through before event day, making it easier for our setup crew to do quick and efficient work.
Splitting the booth into activity and flower tables solved the single-line problem and made the wait feel like participation.
Where tabling events met people in motion, workshops were for the ones who wanted to actually sit with the topic: attachment styles, conflict in relationships, what it looks like to rebuild a support system, etc. We were often joined by counseling professionals, representatives from domestic abuse shelters, and other more knowledgeable adults dedicated to our cause.
The curriculum for workshops came from our web team's research every week, then got handed to design to adapt into event materials and zines. Whether someone came to the workshop, took a zine, or swiped through the Sunday carousel, it was the same story told.
Tunes and Ties was the clearest proof of how far the org had come, and a full circle to our very original plan in 2023. After two years as an org, we put on a full outdoor event on McKeldin Mall: ten clubs, live music, food, flowers, and all proceeds to My Sister's Place.
Students bought $1 tickets, and each ticket bought one flower from any club's table. To build a full bouquet, you had to visit multiple clubs, which meant every org got to share their mission with every attendee.
Tunes and Ties, Year 2 — McKeldin Mall. Nine partner clubs, live music, and a build-your-own-bouquet mechanic that turned every flower into a reason to connect.
What it actually took to run six weeks of events twice: the planning pipeline, the budgets, the team structure, and the systems that made it repeatable. While I knew exactly the events I wanted to put on, and exactly the way to do it, I realized we were missing one crucial component: manpower.
Before any of our executive board existed, there was a coalition; a group of people Faith and I identified and recruited through both of our friendgroups.
Transport help for load-in and load-out; extroverted general helpers to draw crowds and keep lines moving; photographers and videographers; people with connections to cheap flowers and food; even two college newspaper reporters for press. Everyone was there for a reason, credited for what they did, and thanked with leftover flowers and a spot on the socials.
Once we realized we needed help, we feared we wouldn't have enough hands. To our surprise, we had a group of 15 people consistently show up to help us wrap hundreds of bouquets, fold zines, drive cars, man booths, and genuinely allow our project to take off.
Our prep time eventually became routine enough to develop a name, Yap & Wrap, where people would bring snacks and music to enjoy while prepping (usually, wrapping bouquets). Faith and I's friend groups merged throughout this time, and many of those who routinely attended ended up becoming directors the following year.
To make our money stretch the entire curriculum, every event had its own line-item budget before a single purchase was made.
When we found a relatively cost-effective item, we thought about ways we could repurpose it in fresh ways: bouquet baby's breath could also be used as accents on the drinks, 3 different beverage flavors could all come from the same Sprite base with different flavor additions. Through everything, all items were priced and tallied before committed to.
We raised $5,300, majority through four proposals: the Do Good Institute, the Pepsi Grant, and the Honors College Grant, and Student Entertainment Events funding. Making the case for an org that did not fully exist yet forced us to learn how to quickly and efficiently budget; you cannot be vague when you are asking for funding.
It was really important to me that most interactions were free to students (we literally had to create a sign to say things were free, because people thought we were tricking them). This created the least barrier to interaction, and the most joy, focus on our message, and heighten the participant's mental engagement with the activity).
By Year 2 we conducted an application and interview process to develop our executive board. With our 26 members, we had individuals dedicated to managing specific moving parts that the planning process needed to be systematized.
The org ran on Notion for high-level documentation, Google Drive for working files, and Slack for day-to-day communication. Each had a specific job and we tried not to let them overlap, though we grouped them into Promotions, Programming, and Logistics in order to split weekly check-ins and communications between Faith and I.
| Team | Responsibilities |
|---|---|
| Executives | Overall direction, proposal finalization, cross-team coordination, budget approval |
| Community & Education | Event activity design, workshop content, partner outreach, weekly educational research |
| Design | All visual assets, graphics, handouts, zines, signage, brand consistency |
| Operations | Room reservations, inventory, setup and breakdown logistics, equipment, transportation |
| Business & Finance | Budget tracking, purchase lists, grant management, reimbursements, weekly cost reporting |
| Multimedia | Photography, videography, shot lists, file handoffs, weekly recaps, documentary |
| Web & Research | Website updates, weekly blog posts, research for educational content, interview scheduling |
I built a weekly pipeline running from Sunday ideation through Saturday finalization, coordinating five teams simultaneously: community and education, design, operations, business and finance, and multimedia. Each team had dependencies on the others, so sequencing mattered.
All teams come together at the exec meeting to discuss ideas for the week's events: one main tabling event, one small event, one workshop. Logistical questions are raised in the room: foot traffic, crowd management, club collaboration, budget split, preparation time.
Programming team and execs select the central event plans. Formal statements sent via Slack by end of day: activity description, location, time, and what kind of club partnerships would work.
Each team moves on their lane simultaneously. Ops reserves rooms and equipment. Finance breaks the weekly budget per event. Design scopes graphics and handouts with education. Multimedia plans capture. Web locks the blog and site update timeline.
All information sent to execs → uploaded into the finalized plan document. Materials batched into two print orders: Weeks 1–3 before spring break, Weeks 4–6 during it.
Gabrielle and Faith develop a proposal slide and present it at the exec meeting — before the new ideation stage begins. Changes are noted and folded back in before the week locks.
When reviewing proposed event plans, and the night before we executive, I walked through every event from two angles: as an attendee walking through the space, and as someone running it. Those two perspectives allowed me to catch different things before we were on site.
✿ Conversation sticks created for dining halls.
Writing it down was not bureaucracy; it was how we caught problems before they showed up on the day. If the event proposal template had an empty field, the event was not ready.
I would rather do things well and slightly late than inconsistent, disorganized, and on time.
Most of the unglamorous work happened in spreadsheets and Slack threads. Every event required coordinating pickup times, setup crews, vehicles, space reservations, weather contingencies, and police notification for larger gatherings (learned, unfortunately, through trial by fire...).
Operations owned the inventory tracker across all six weeks, updating it before each planning cycle. Materials were batched into two orders: Weeks 1 through 3 before spring break, Weeks 4 through 6 during it. No last-minute sourcing the night before an event.
Opening it up to 26 people with defined roles required building the structure before the people came in: board applications, weekly exec meetings, a full planning semester before the campaign started. But the thing I felt most strongly about was making sure the board knew each other before the campaign started.
Shared passion gets you in the room; it does not tell you how someone works under pressure. So we built that in: a Thanksgiving potluck, a picnic photoshoot instead of a studio session. Get people together when the work is not the point, and let the relationships form around something easier than a deadline.
What I found managing a team that size is that clarity of role, and their ability to rely on their teammates, matters more than anything else. When people know exactly what they own, and how to blend it with their team, the machine runs on its own. Otherwise, everything lands on Faith and I to untangle.
A full look at The Petal Project — placeholder grid for now, to be filled with the final photo and video selects.
Immerse yourself in the full experience — listen to the playlist while you read.
Open on Spotify ↗
