Change The Ref: The New recruits

Over the last two decades, more school-aged children have died from guns (42,507) than active-duty military personnel (25,527). To draw attention to the absurdity that’s more dangerous to go to school in America than it is to go to war, we created a military recruiting office.  There are over 4,400 military recruiting offices across the U.S. They’re a feature of the American landscape. We created our own recruiting office that imitated the style of these centers, from the strip-mall location to the patriotic portrait photographs of soldiers that fill the windows. The only different is in our office, the portraits showed child soldiers, not adults. And a message read: SEND YOUR CHILDREN TO WAR. IT’S SAFER THAN SENDING THEM TO SCHOOL.”
 
A child dressed in military fatigues stopped passersby to inform them that the office was recruiting children to join the army “for their own safety”. Manuel and Patricia Oliver, who started the gun control group Change the Ref, after their son, Joaquin, was murdered in the Parkland school shooting, were on hand to distribute fliers to passing cars and explain their mission.