Karen Obel and the College Initiative Community

This flow follows Karen Obel’s growing bond with the people organizing campus performances, as shared labor, disclosures, and mutual encouragement turn a project into a community.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

A Meeting at Feminist.com

Finding a Shared Purpose An Unexpected Invitation Karen Obel recalls serving on the board of Feminist.com when Eve Ensler was invited to a meeting at the suggestion of Kathy Najimy. Obel arrives as a board member, not yet knowing that the discussion will reshape her sense of what she can contribute. A Collective Beginning The meeting connects the aims of Feminist.com with Ensler’s commitment to stopping violence against women. By its end, V-Day has been conceived, and the participants begin inviting others to join the benefit committee. Obel’s bond with the emerging movement begins through collective recognition rather than a private friendship alone. A shared purpose draws people into one another’s lives and gives them a practical reason to trust that their separate efforts can become consequential together.

The First Benefit

Commitment in the Room Preparing Together The V-Day Benefit Committee organizes a celebrity performance of The Vagina Monologues at the Hammerstein Ballroom. During rehearsals, Obel hears Glenn Close ask Ensler about the precise sounds required for her monologue, a small moment that makes the performers’ seriousness unmistakable. A Shared Audience On the night of the event, the audience laughs, cries, falls silent, and cheers. Obel sits beside her mother, and when Ensler asks people affected by violence to stand, Obel and her mother rise along with almost everyone in the room. That moment changes Obel’s understanding of why she has given so much of herself to the work. The connection among committee members, performers, and audience is no longer an organizational abstraction; the room reveals how widely the experience of violence reaches into people’s lives.

Stories After the Applause

When the Organizers Speak A New Kind of Meeting After the benefit succeeds, the committee gathers to celebrate and consider what to improve. Without an imminent event to organize, the group has time to listen to one another in a different way. Shared Vulnerability Women Obel has come to know as strong, brilliant, and self-sufficient disclose experiences of abuse that stun her. During the event’s preparation, they had not redirected attention toward themselves; now their stories reveal how close the cause is to the people doing the work. Obel leaves the meeting numb but more certain of her purpose. Trust grows through the realization that activism is not separate from personal history: colleagues who seemed simply capable organizers also carry wounds, and listening to them deepens the community’s commitment.

Building the Campus Network

Organizing Across Campuses Reaching Out Obel develops the V-Day College Initiative by contacting colleges and universities, writing to departments, student organizations, and educators. Responses range from enthusiasm to suspicion and hostility, and some organizers face backlash or consider withdrawing. Encouragement Across Distance Participants begin sharing practical advice and emotional reassurance. One student reminds the others that every group will find its own method; another offers ideas for locating campus and community funding. Obel sees that the initiative is becoming a network in which young organizers can help one another endure uncertainty. Their connection is forged through work rather than perfect agreement. The shared task makes room for different local circumstances while giving participants a common vocabulary for courage, improvisation, and mutual support.

A Community That Changes Its Members

The Network Becomes Personal Participants Describe Their Change Following campus productions, organizers write about shy performers finding confidence, audiences discovering the force of women’s testimony, and teams learning to make ambitious events possible. Obel receives accounts of people who feel less isolated and more able to imagine recovery after abuse. A Continuing Bond The initiative’s emotional importance exceeds attendance or fundraising figures. Participants have built relationships through rehearsals, planning, conflict, and performance; they experience the project as a community that can hold both practical labor and vulnerable disclosure. Obel’s own demanding correspondence becomes part of that bond. She repeatedly asks herself why she continues, then receives a letter that answers the question. The flow resolves in mutual reinforcement: she supports the participants, and their words renew her commitment to the work.

1997, at a Feminist.com board meeting

Valentine’s Day 1998, at the Hammerstein Ballroom

Several weeks after the first V-Day benefit

1999, during the first College Initiative preparations

After the 1999 and 2000 campus events