Members of a sexual assault awareness group in La Crosse are aiming to target sexual assault where it often begins — at the bars.

For the month of April, the La Crosse Area Sexual Assault Services Group teamed up with City Brewery and the La Crosse County Tavern league to produce 20,000 napkins branded with sexual assault prevention tips to be distributed at bars throughout the city.

"One of the neat parts is that the La Crosse Police Department has been working with us on this project, so a uniformed officer actually delivers the napkins to the bars," Ingrid Peterson, coordinator of the sexual assault services group, said.

In addition to phone numbers for 24-hour sexual assault services at Gunderson Lutheran Medical Center and Franciscan Skemp Medical Center, the napkins also exhibit various prevention tips:

– Sex: Consent is a must

– Sex: Assume silence means "NO"

– Sex: Ask before you touch

– Sex: Never leave your drink unattended

– Sex: Drunk, Passed Out, or Asleep means "NO"

"The message we're sending is that you need to have consent, and you can't get that if the person is completely intoxicated," Peterson said, adding that because sexual assaults often go "widely underreported," the focus of the napkins is to put responsibility on the perpetrators to prevent the assault altogether.

Corporate sponsors footing the bill also recognized the need to reach out to the community.

"[The goal] is to raise awareness for the sexual assault awareness month of April, and we thought it was a good corporate responsibility program, which City Brewery likes to do," John Reynolds, director of marketing at City Brewery, said. "It's no different than we would do for a designated driver program."

Dave Parisey, president of the La Crosse County Tavern League, also said he saw the benefit in getting the message out to bar-goers in this unique way, as he authorized production of significantly more napkins than was asked of his league.

According to Art Ekern, secretary of the tavern league, City Brewery "partnered up" with the league to split the bill for the community-wide awareness project.

"The Lacrosse Tavern League … went above and beyond what they were initially slated," Reynolds said. "From 5,000, they raised that to 20,000, which obviously impacts a lot of people in the city of La Crosse."

And with thousands of napkins in circulation, Peterson said she's happy with the project's success.

"We've had a number of people who've had contact with bartenders and bar workers saying that people are really taking notice and talking about the messages," she said.

The bars that received napkins are mostly in the downtown area, where Peterson said a "high percentage of sexual assaults that are alcohol related" occur. While college-aged bar patrons are not the specific targets of the project, Peterson said she recognizes members of that age group are not only frequent bar-goers, but also tend — unfortunately — to be susceptible to assault.

The goal is to "bring sexual assault out of the closet," Peterson added.

The napkins will be distributed for the duration of April or for as long as supplies last.