By Ginger Prevas

The spring of 2002 was Molly Spence's final semester at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Like every college senior, she was focused on her own future: She was finishing classes, refining her resume, preparing for a move to a new city, and looking forward to a career in public relations.

One of her final classes that spring was Broadcast Journalism. Molly took the course because she figured it would help her career. She hadn't imagined it would lead to an important life lesson.

Each year, the Broadcast Journalism class at UNC produces a Public Service Announcement (PSA) for a nonprofit organization. This year, the university chose The HSUS. Molly and her classmates felt an immediate attraction to our First Strike campaign, which raises awareness about the well-documented connection between animal cruelty and human violence.

They were especially drawn to the subject after learning that so many of the perpetrators of animal cruelty were their peers—teens and young adults. They realized they had a unique opportunity to make an impact by developing a message that would speak to their own generation. Their message is twofold. The first and more narrow one: Don't take your frustrations out on your pet. Look to them for comfort instead. The second, broader message: Channeling your emotions in a healthy direction can break the connection between animal cruelty and human violence, which often begins during those angst-ridden teenage years.

The PSA project began with research. Molly attended a First Strike workshop to immerse herself in the issue. She and others also sought feedback from teens, parents, and others about the violence connection and about attitudes on animal cruelty.

The information they collected started to have an effect. Molly grew up with pets, a cat named Bitty Kitty and a dog named Abby, and she treated her animals as members of the family. Her childhood friends had similar relationships with their pets. Their knowledge of animal cruelty was limited to school yard bragging, kids who boasted about hurting animals for kicks. The workshop Molly attended made her realize that these kids were at risk of escalating their violence to human targets.

They suddenly had a personal interest in raising awareness about the issue among teens. But there was still the PSA concept to develop. The group had no shortage of ideas—more than 15 by one count.

After much discussion and consultation with several UNC media professionals, they settled on a concept. They decided on a PSA that they knew would strike a chord with their target audience—an edgy, 30-second spot in the style of a popular rap music video. They knew their audience watched music videos, and so the PSA would grab their attention. But in stark contrast to many music videos, this one wouldn't promote violence and despair—it would, instead, ask teens to stop the violence and provide hope.

As the idea took shape, the students worked with a local songwriter to create original music and rap lyrics for the PSA. The idea was to hook viewers with something vaguely familiar, then twist it to an entirely new theme and conclusion. The black-and-white video is set in a bedroom where a teenager overhears his parents arguing; the fight stirs up emotions in the boy, and he looks around the room for targets for his anger. His dog sits nearby, looking vulnerable. In the final scene, the teen chooses to embrace his dog for comfort and support rather than take his anger out on the animal.

On the day of the filming, the students worked closely with professional light and camera crews to capture just the right shots, angles, and mood. After the shoot, they worked side-by-side with their professors to synchronize the music and to edit the images into a tight, dramatic message. The result is The HSUS's "Animal Cruelty/Break the Connection" music video PSA. The First Strike campaign is sharing the video with television news organizations, and working with teen-oriented websites to link to the PSA, hoping to get teens to join our efforts.

Looking back, Molly feels producing the PSA was her favorite project in college. On a practical level, she got valuable experience in the mechanics of creating a PSA. The added benefit was learning about such an important animal-protection issue, one she knew little about before the project. "We learned so much," she said. "It took a whole lot of work, but we knew we were making a difference for animals. And for teens, too."

The project also made a difference for Molly and her classmates—they now consider themselves animal advocates, and Molly plans to continue to speak out about breaking the connection between animal cruelty and human violence. She says she will intervene whenever she sees animal cruelty in her neighborhood or community.

And, in a final twist of fate, Molly now finds herself doing advocacy in a different arena: She recently accepted a PR job with National Family Farm Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based group that brings together grassroots organizations to promote sustainable agriculture.

Ginger Prevas is manager of the First Strike campaign.