EVANSVILLE, Wis. -- Although many people are involved in abusive relationships, a growing number of those people are teenagers.

Health officials said that it's estimated that one in three teens involved in relationships are involved in abusive relationships, whether that be verbal, emotional, physical or sexual. While both boys and girls can be victimized, for girls the abuse tends to be longer-lived, as studies show that 80 percent of girls stay in relationships after the first incident of violence, officials said.

Some Evansville High School students decided on Saturday to take a stand against abusive relationships by creating a bright and bold message that they hoped couldn't be missed, WISC-TV reported.

"We are painting windows for teen dating abuse," said Brooke Janes, about the project that she and many others got involved in over the weekend.

The project is a second-year event called "Refuse 2 Bruise." To spread the message, students painted windows along the city's main street.

Armed with her acrylics, Evansville student Janes said she didn't know how bad the problem was in her area, acknowledging that not knowing was part of the problem.

"It's unknown around here, because most people are silent," said Janes.

Janes also recognizes that there are many ways people can be stuck in abusive relationships that were completely unheard of just a few years ago, WISC-TV reported.

"Dating abuse doesn't just have to be verbal, it can also be through technology, over Facebook or through cell phones. A lot of times with texting and calling constantly," said Janes.

To get this message across, one of Janes' paintings was of numbers on a cell phone.

"There's so many kids in harmful relationships, especially verbally and emotional abuse," said Julie Hermanson, the project's coordinator.

"We want them to start using their voice, when they see it we want them to stop it, we want them to take that step to take that stand," said Hermanson.

Hermanson realizes that if young people take a stand against abusive relationships now, they will be less likely to be stuck in them as adults.

"If they realize it's not appropriate behavior when they're younger, then they're more likely to form healthy relationships when they're adults," said Hermanson.

The group painting on Saturday was perhaps surprisingly made up of more men than women. One of those men was Alec Decker.

"I'm painting a puppet," said Decker. "It's supposed to symbolize the controlling behavior in an abusive relationship."

"It's an important message that males are not in charge of females' lives, they can make their own choices, they can be their own person," said Decker.

The paintings won't be permanent, but the group hopes the message will be. To underscore their message, some of the students wore shirts that said "When push comes to shove, it's no longer love."

The shirts were supposed to mean that if someone in a relationship suspects they are being abused, he or she should go with their gut instinct -- and get out.