It was a deep blue child-sized T-shirt, delicately pinned to a clothesline inside Pollock Rec Room. On the shirt were painted the words: "This is how little I was when you raped me."
The shirt was one of more than 250 hanging this weekend as part of Penn State's third Clothesline Project display.
The Center for Women Students sponsors the event, which provides a medium for women who have been victims of violence to help continue the healing process.
"Healing is a step by step, by backward step, by forward step journey," said Chloe Casella, graduate assistant for the Center for Women Students, during Friday's introductory remarks for the display. "Everyone's journey is unique and personal."
Throughout the weekend hundreds of people viewed the shirts and some were able to make their own.
The colors of the shirts told what type of violence was suffered: rape and sexual assault, battery, incest or child sexual abuse, violence because of sexual orientation and death from violence.
There were more than 30 white shirts made by people who were left behind when women died from violence.
"The number of shirts is that there's always too many," said Susan DelPonte, project co-coordinator, expressing grief about the many women who are victimized.
The individual designs described each woman's experience.
Relatives and friends made some shirts, while survivors made others themselves. People could make the shirts as they pleased but were asked not to include the name of the perpetrator.
This year, the project was held in conjunction with the Centre County Women's Resource Center's 16th anniversary, and the shirts on display were local, mostly made by Penn State students.
The Center for Women Students keeps the shirts in careful storage until they are shown at Penn State.
In between these displays, shirts are sometimes lent out to other Clothesline Project groups.
Organizers said they always hope the shirts will be returned in perfect condition after being borrowed. "They really are people to us, I think," said Peggy Lorah, assistant director of the Center for Women Students.
Instead of the usual lineup of speakers on the statistics of violence against women, the project featured more uplifting musical acts this year.
On Friday evening, singer and songwriter Andy Moore sang accompanied by her guitar, while some sat to listen and others walked around to view the shirts.
During the small closing ceremony on Saturday evening, the Women of Radiance, an informal choral group of eight women, performed for about 15 minutes.
Their singing has become a Clothesline Project tradition.
"I'm like a T-shirt on the line, my truth will shine," sang the women in a song they said was created specifically for the project.
The group closed by inviting the small audience to join them in their farewell song.
In the past, the HUB-Robeson Center hosted the Clothesline Project, but the renovation of the building eliminated the columns necessary to string the clotheslines, forcing the display to its new location. Pollock Commons is not as central to campus, making the project less visible to all students.
"Someone came today and said 'What are you doing hiding back here?' " said DelPonte.
One option for the future might be hanging the shirts on an outdoor line, like the national Clothesline Project that was held in Washington, D.C.
"We would love to see it be something that happens outdoors.
"I think the freedom of the shirts blowing in the wind would be so beautiful and powerful," Lorah said about the Clothesline event.
The blue child-sized shirt, showing its creator's abuse at a young age expressed some of the power Lorah spoke of in its second line: "But watch out! 'Cause I'm not this little anymore."
