April 19 to 25 is National Crime Victims' Rights Week.

To shed light on a topic that affects thousands but is rarely discussed, the Victims Resource Center and Blue Mountain Health System's Gnaden Huetten campus teamed up to host the center's annual Shoe Project.Patrick Rushton, outreach and education manager for the Victims Resource Center, says the shoe project, which is in its 10th year, aims to educate the public about sexual violence and other violent crimes and provide resources for victims of these crimes.The display, located in the lobby of the Lehighton hospital, will be set up for visitors until Friday. On it, people can find approximately a dozen shoes with real victims' stories of assault, rape and abuse, as well as other educational material."The shoes show that anyone can be a victim man, woman, child, senior citizen," Rushton said. "The shoes are symbolic of a time in their life when they were a victim or how they managed to move from victim to survivor of violence."Rushton noted that the center chose shoes for the project because they wanted to "try to get people to put themselves in another person's shoes; to think about what it's like to be a victim of violence. Walk a mile in their shoes.""People who have read the stories told us how powerful they think they are," he added, noting that sometimes reading the stories provides a person with enough courage to finally admit that they were also a victim.If that happens, there is help, no matter if the act occurred five or 15 years ago, Rushton said."If you have been a victim or were affected by a crime of violence in some way that happened to someone else, we are here to help."Lisa Johnson, vice president of public relations and marketing at Blue Mountain Health System, said that the hospital was happy to host the project for the week."It's so important to support the Victims Resource Center because we do, unfortunately, have to deal with patients that come in who are victims of violent crimes, assault and rape," she said."By helping them get the word out it helps us and our patients and hopefully we can decrease the amount of victims from sexual assault and crime victims in the region."The Shoe Project and National Crime Victims' Rights Week is held in conjunction with Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April.If you are a victim of a crime and would like help, call the Victims Resource Center hotline anytime at 610-379-0151 or for more information, visit

www.vrcnepa.org.