By: Anne Morse, Students for Life of America’s 2012 Missionary for Life

August is coming. Office supply stores are in their peak season, and nervous parents peruse Target’s “Dorm supply aisles” with excited 18 year olds. As the parents and teenagers argue over the practicality of the laundry basket versus wanting a cool dorm room, well-organized student groups lay in wait for these unsuspecting freshmen.

All college student groups know that the first few weeks are the best time to recruit and receive committed freshman. Freshmen have minimal units, and unfilled schedules. As they wander around trying to find lecture halls and discovering that fraternity parties do not have coat checks, we give them fliers.

As your Students for Life poster tries to compete with fliers for the breakdance club and Students Against Nuking Gay Whales, I have a way to get freshman to seek out your fliers.

Put your flier on the back of a campus map.

Create a campus map with not only prominent campus buildings but also with valuable local knowledge. Add the locations of all the best restaurants, which bus stops are reliable, which corners have the cranky homeless, and which have the friendly ones. Put the best places to get late-night food and where to get early morning coffee and Advil. In short, make it invaluable to the freshmen. They will end up carrying the flier with your first meeting time and location for the first few weeks of the semester.

Here’s the best part: put the location of the nearest Pregnancy Resource or Student Parent Center on your map. Also, if you put phone numbers on your map, you can add a local pro-life pregnancy hotline along with the number for Chinese take-out and the Registrar’s office.

Good luck, and happy freshman hunting!