Hello beautiful readers. April is Child Abuse Awareness month. Now whenever these kind of months come around- some more profound than others, obviously Cricket Awareness isn't as important as Child Abuse ( now I'm going to get PETA people writing me nasty emails )- I always stop for a moment and think
what do you mean, awareness? what exactly does awareness do?
Like most of you I am saturated daily with terrible stories of loss and heartache and death and violence, and like many of you I move away from most of those with the intent that drowning in the world's sorrows isn't helping anyone, anywhere, especially not those I can more directly impact, like my family, or the guy down the street who is asking for money.
It is for this reason that I believe many people refuse to read about or discuss child abuse cases. The very words
child abuse
look terribly wrong together, sickening, and bring about some of our deepest fears as human beings:
Are people mostly insane?
Am I capable of turning into that type of person, the type who would hurt a child?
What type of a person DOES hurt a child?
Do I know someone who is hurting their child?
And at that point, or maybe after the first question, we stop thinking about it because it's everything.
Our children are our everything.
They are our now, our future, our past DNA brought to today, they are everything that is best about human beings.
I know it's important to be sane, and I know that thinking about child abuse for any real period of time makes us feel insane. I also know that if we are to ever have any hope of greatly, greatly reducing child abuse cases in the United States, much less wiping it out, we have to be willing to feel these things, at least a little, and we have to find something- even something very small, that we can do to help.
My good and old friend Ms. Dena Rash Guzman linked this article on her Facebook last week, and it was a gut punch. Just read this one paragraph:
“More than 20,000 American children are believed to have been killed in their own homes by family members in the last 10 years, nearly four times the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. A BBC investigation finds that the United States has the worst child-abuse record of all the industrialized nations. Every week, 66 children under 15 die from physical abuse or neglect in the First World, 27 of them in the U.S. Experts say teen pregnancy, high-school dropout rates, violent crime, imprisonment, and poverty are generally much higher in the United States.”
WHAT I AM DOING TO HELP OUR CHILDREN
I am doing a virtual fundraiser for Childhelp by doing a fundraising hike in my hometown. Childhelp is an organization that works to prevent child abuse and also to help children who have been abused. They work with various celebrities and currently are working with Jordin Sparks, American Idol alumni and singer.
Every Spring, Childhelp organizes a fundraising marathon in Arizona to raise money for their organization. If you cannot be there but want to help, you can start your own walk/hike/run where you live and fundraise for Childhelp with a fundraising page, and that is what I am doing. The main point of a fundraiser is ... to raise money! You can donate here.
My hike is April 28th in Poway at Blue Sky Reserve, my family will be hiking and anyone who wants to come join us!!
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP OUR CHILDREN
1. Donate to my Childhelp fundraiser. All you have to do is click here and scroll down and make a one time donation.
2. Help me spread the word about my Childhelp fundraising hike. Put my link and brief information on your blog, Facebook page, Pinterest and Twitter.
If you choose to spread the word, I'd love a heads up about your link or notice!
Thank you so much.
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