Pinwheel planting for National Child Abuse Prevention Month
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » In observance of National Child Abuse Prevention Month, Saratoga Center for the Family hosted a pinwheel planting on Tuesday, with elected officials, police representatives, community supporters and survivors.
“April is Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Month, and it’s during this time that a spotlight is shown on an issue that can be very difficult to discuss, but these discussions are important and we need to make them happen year round,” Saratoga Center for the Family’s Executive Director Rebecca Baldwin said. “The most powerful measures available to keep our children safe are education prevention and, when necessary, intervention and healing.”
Baldwin said 231 pinwheels were planted behind the facility on 359 Ballston Ave. to honor the 231 children that visited Harriet M. West Child Advocacy Center, at Saratoga Center for the Family, over the past year.
The pinwheel, Baldwin explained, has become the national symbol for the month of April because, “it reminds us of our own childhoods and the care-free happy and healthy childhoods that all children deserve.”
Saratoga Springs Mayor Meg Kelly, Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner and a representative from state Sen. James Tedisco’s office shared words about Child Abuse Prevention Month.
“Saratoga Center for the Family has done a wonderful job over the years in creating a community that is keeping our children safe,” Kelly said. “I do think that it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a village to protect a child.
“And I really feel that as a community we do our best, all of us standing here, and way beyond this group to make that happen.”
Woerner said Saratoga Center for the Family has been an amazing organization.
“For 40 years they have, starting from a very grass-roots basis, grown to provide services that are integral to the healing of so many children’s lives,” Woerner said. “In the past year, they’ve grown to have a stronger presence to more of the schools in our county to make sure that the services that these children and families need are available to them in a place where they can take advantage of it.”