Each week, the Oamaru police are called to between five and 10 family violence-related incidents.
In a new anti-violence campaign, 115 businesses and groups from around the Waitaki district have taken a stand.
The support has exceeded The Safer Waitaki Coalition's expectations, as so many people have put their faces to the poster campaign by having their photographs taken and creating a slogan reflecting their business or group and their stance against family violence.
''I thought we would get a small number of businesses interested and when we went out and actually asked people, almost everybody wanted to be part of the campaign,'' Waitaki Community Safety and Development facilitator Helen Algar said.
''It could've been much bigger, we could've involved so many more businesses, but it just got too big.''
The posters are now on display at the various organisations around the district, while a display of all posters can be seen at New World Oamaru.
Based around the ''Family Violence - It's Not OK'' campaign, the North Otago posters echo a project on the West Coast.
''We really liked their poster campaign,'' Mrs Algar said.
''We thought that was something we could do that would be a medium to long-term [campaign] and would involve a lot more of the community.''
They hope to make it a moving display and an ongoing campaign.
It had taken months of hard work, visiting businesses and groups from Palmerston to Omarama, but Mrs Algar said the project had been fun, because the support from the community had been ''so amazing''.
That sent a strong message that the Waitaki community cared about the issue and was willing to contribute to preventing family violence.
Already, people in the community were having conversations about the posters displayed around Oamaru.
''The teams in each business have been thinking about the issue while they are developing their slogan,'' she said.
Training by It's Not OK senior adviser Stephanie Edmond was also being offered on December 1 to anyone interested in becoming champions against family violence.
''It's no good just putting up a poster and then when somebody comes in looking for help they don't know how to handle it,'' she said.
''The more champions we have out there, the better.''
