Nonprofit led by Miss Red Rose City teaches lessons on consent
When not competing in pageants or fulfilling her duties as Miss Red Rose City, Samantha Roth is working to educate elementary school students on topics like personal boundaries.
In 2023, she founded a nonprofit, Take a Stand, which creates programs in schools that teach youths about consent when it comes to personal space and touch.
Roth said she, herself, didn’t start having these conversations with others until she was around college age, so she hopes to teach students these concepts at a young age so they have the tools to respond to situations that make them uncomfortable.
“Consent and boundaries are similar to anti-bullying, like how are we able to prevent this?” Roth said. “Our mission is to use educational curriculums to learn about consent and boundaries through science, songs and group activities. By teaching children this at a young age, we’re able to prevent abuse in their lives currently and in the future.”
Through Take a Stand, Roth already has led several workshops at Knoch Primary School and the Butler Area Public Library. The nonprofit also produces a podcast, Take a Mic, which also promotes the messages of Take a Stand.
Roth said the summer is a planning time for the nonprofit, but her goal for the coming years is to make Take a Stand into an organization that addresses sexual violence and abuse on a Butler-wide scale.
“My biggest goal is for Take a Stand is to become the City of Butler's primary crisis center,” Roth said. “It is my goal in the next 10 years to have a building in the City of Butler. Until then, we pretty much serve the Greater Pittsburgh area.”
Roth was crowned Miss Butler County in 2024, and she recently received the Women in Media Award from Fox43 for her work with Take a Stand and Take A Mic. She also resides in Butler and works for Batavia Studios in Mars as the head of dance.
Take a Stand earned its nonprofit status in February 2024. Several people on the nonprofit’s board of directors are survivors of sexual assault, which helps give Take a Stand’s programs a first-person perspective. Roth said she and the other people who lead programs in schools have their child clearances and are certified to work with children.
Roth said she, too, is a survivor of sexual abuse, which is one of the reasons she started Take a Stand. She said she wants to prevent others from facing similar abuses to what she faced, by starting conversations early.
“I think it’s something that continues to happen because we don’t have it,” Roth said. “I didn’t start having these conversation until my senior year. It was like, ‘Why didn’t I have these conversations as a freshman?’”
While her mission is to stop sexual abuse from happening, Roth said she brings the subject to a level that is more appropriate for elementary school students by using coloring pages and activities that reflect anti-bullying methods. Roth said she may take the nonprofit into higher grade levels in the future, but, for now, her focus is on elementary schools in Butler County.
“People get scared that this is a 25-year-old who is going into schools and teaching them what is rape, what is sexual violence,” Roth said. “We have a coloring sheet, it’s called the town of consent, and I kind of use it as a freehand of, ‘Here's a coloring sheet,’ and it’s asking what this picture means.”
Logan S. Andres, the nonprofit’s secretary and college ambassador for Take a Stand at Slippery Rock University, said she and Roth use situations children may commonly come across to address consent. According to Andres, children can learn how to speak about their personal boundaries when it comes to affectionate physical touch. These are the kind of interactions Take a Stand focuses on with the children in its programs.
“Some kids don’t like to give hugs and they can say no,” Andres said. “It’s very valuable, and it’s OK to say no and they don't have to explain why.”
In addition to county elementary school students, Take a Stand comes to other organizations through its board members and staff. As a Slippery Rock University student, Andres is able to regularly speak with her peers about their experience, and share information that could help them avoid suffering from abuse.
Andres said she has shared with other college students ways to tell if a drink has been tampered with, and ways to identify a person who may have experienced abuse, or who may be in an abusive relationship.
“Part of what I do is try to educated people on sexual assault awareness and signs that a person might be in an unsafe situation,” Andres said. “I work a lot with college students and advocating for that.”
Roth said Take a Stand is still evolving, too. Conversations on Take a Mic have led to new initiatives, like “Logan’s Library,” an online guide for books that survivors can read for perspectives on abuse, or stories they can read to find solace.
“I’m a huge reader. I have found books to explain stories without triggering them,” Andres said. “Sami and I will make a post for a book of the month that I think survivors could read.”
Roth also said she has shared parts of her own experience as a sexual violence survivor in her to work with people of all age groups.
“As someone with PTSD, some people will ‘trauma block,’ the form is also a way to log it, literally, so you can remember what happened to you,” Roth said. “I definitely forgot a lot of the things that happened to me. I’d block it and it would come in six months later.”
While Take a Stand aims to confront topics about violence and sexual assault, Roth emphasized that the nonprofit is not about therapy, but prevention. She said, however, that teaching youths how to enforce their own personal boundaries has been rewarding, and has been part of her own healing journey.
“I never thought I would be 25 and a nonprofit owner, especially not for something so heavy,” Roth said. “As overwhelming as this can be for a survivor, it’s cool to see kids express themselves.”
For more information about Take a Stand, visit Roth’s website at samiroth.com.
