How you can honor National Child Abuse Prevention Month
April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and Greater Richmond SCAN has great ideas to help you help them raise awareness.
Photo by: Mickey_Liaw
April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and Greater Richmond SCAN (Stop Child Abuse Now) leads the local charge in raising awareness about this issue that affects 13,700 children every day in the United States.
SCAN’s website offers up a variety of ideas for how you and your family can help educate your community (and yourselves) about the realities of child abuse and what we all can do to help prevent it. Some are simple, some more involved, but they’re all very doable and incredibly important. We hope you’ll give some of them a go this month.
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Plant pinwheels
As SCAN explains it…
“The pinwheel is a happy, uplifting symbol of childhood and can be used in a number of ways to draw attention to the prevention of child abuse and neglect. Pinwheels are the national symbol for child abuse prevention and the Pinwheels for Prevention campaign focuses on positive efforts to ensure that all children have the safe, stable, nurturing families they deserve.”
For every $25 donated, a pinwheel will be “planted” outside of SCAN’s offices on E. Grace Street.
SCAN also encourages you to plant pinwheel gardens of your own outside of your home, school, or business for the month of April–just email jcameron@grscan.com to request any number of pinwheels ($1 donation per pinwheel is suggested).
Wear blue
On Monday, April 4th, people across the state of Virginia will wear blue to make a visible commitment to child abuse prevention. Join them!
Eat for a good cause
All April long Wild Ginger (3734 Winterfield Road) will donate $2 for every SCAN sushi roll1 sold.
Every Thursday in April (7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th), Richmond’s Sweet Frog locations will donate 25% of that day’s sales to SCAN. Make sure you tell them you’re there to support SCAN!
The last week of April–April 26th through May 1st–Continental Divide (2501 W. Main Street) will donate $1 for every order of Red Hot Blues2 sold.
Collect “Abes for Babes”
This grassroots campaign works to engage members of the community with the simple words, “Have a penny? Help a child.”
Email kread@grscan.com to receive an official collection jar to set up in your office, business, church, or home. All funds collected go to SCAN’s services–and don’t worry, SCAN staff and volunteers will count the change for you.
Host a snack drive
One way SCAN tries to comfort and care for the children in their programs is to have plenty of snacks on-hand. Gather your friends and gather some snacks to help keep SCAN’s pantry stocked up! But contact SCAN first (at kread@grscan.com) for details on their specific needs.
Become a Steward of Children
Stewards of Children is a one-session training class that gives adults concrete tools for preventing, recognizing, and reacting to child sexual abuse. SCAN will offer this course free of charge to all participants during the month of April. Email hvaughn@grscan.com if you’d like to attend or host a training.3
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For more information on Greater Richmond SCAN and their work to care for and protect the children in our community–this month and year long–visit grscan.com.
- Smoked albacore tuna salad with crunch red onion, topped with avocado and pickled jalapeno, and finished with a citrus/yuzu emulsion and balsamic reduction. ↩
- Their signature goat cheese nachos. ↩
- I attended this training last year; it is intense but fantastic. I left feeling empowered to better care for the children in my life. I cannot recommend it highly enough. ↩
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Valerie Catrow
Valerie Catrow is editor of RVAFamily, mother to a mop-topped first grader, and always really excited to go to bed.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.