|PIC1||Valentine’s Day is usually associated with red roses and crummy dates but for some teens in the U.S. this could not have been further from their reality. These teens opted instead to celebrate Valentine’s Day not by celebrating their love for another person but for God.

As couples around the world were busy dining in restaurants in ode to one another’s love, an increasing number of teens across North America were joining in celebrating the love of God as part of a new Valentine’s Day replacement, the “Day of Purity”.

Fifteen-year-old high school student Ally Hall of Lebanon, Ohio, was one of hundreds of teenagers in around 200 schools and about 800 youth groups across the country expected to take part in the initiative, according to attorney Rena Lindevaldsen in a report in the LA Times.

The day before Valentine’s Day Hall read a piece she had written on purity over the PA system in her school in which she urged that the most romantic way to celebrate Valentine’s Day was by honouring it as a “Day of Purity” and by pledging to remain pure and chaste until marriage.

"People say, 'Don't you get made fun of? Don't your friends think you're weird?'" said Hall. "But if I can stand up for saving sex for marriage, it gives them a choice. They think, 'If she can do it, I can do it too’.”

|TOP|She added: "It's really hard to live up to the expectations that God has for you. I want to have the same popularity that other girls have, but it's not worth the cost. Knowing that people in other states are also doing this encourages me."

The LA Times reported that hundreds of teenagers across the U.S. would be donning white for Valentine’s Day in stark contrast to the red normally associated with Valentine’s Day. The white was chosen specifically as a visible demonstration of their commitment to abstinence.

Part of the kit for the “Day of Purity” also included funky white bracelets with the logo “Live Pure” on them, as well as white T-Shirts with the emblem “Purity” spread in red across the front, both provided free of charge.
Chastity pledges were available online for the participating teenagers to download and sign.

According to Nashville-based True Love Waits, one of the best-known abstinence promoters in the U.S., around 2.5 million teens across the States had signed the pledge cards which said in part: “I make a commitment to God myself, my family, my friends, my future mate and my future children to be sexually abstinent from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship."

Special Purity posters were also printed for the teenagers to spread the word about the venture by posting them up in their school cafeterias. Others wrote letters to their local newspapers to tell them about their new replacement celebration for Valentine’s Day.

"I'm a big purity fan," said 13-year-old Kirsten Bryant of Ewing, Kentucky. "I really like standing up for God's way."