Alliance for Children scores a strike with event
BUTLER TWP — More than 200 people hit the bowling lanes Sunday afternoon to support the efforts of an agency that works with child abuse victims in Butler County.
The third annual Strike Out Child Abuse fundraiser was held at Family Bowlaway Fun Center to support the Butler County Alliance for Children Child Advocacy Center.
April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month and the group was distributing literature and pinwheels, which are meant to represent happy children.
The Alliance for Children was founded in 2014 by Denna Hays, who is executive director and works with a staff of three.
They perform forensic interviews with victims of child abuse to assist law enforcement, Children and Youth Services and other agencies. To date, the group has served 854 victims, from babies to age 19.
Victims of abuse previously had to go to the Butler County Government Center to be interviewed.
“It was not child friendly,” Hays said.
Now they go to the Child Advocacy Center on East Jefferson Street in Butler, where they can more easily relax and talk with the forensic interviewers, she said.
The organization has a contract with the county and is partially funded by grants, but also needs to raise money to support some of the trainings and child abuse prevention work they do. They look at addressing systemic problems and are looking into child trafficking, Hays said.
The number of children affected by abuse, or by criminal activity in their homes, in Butler County has been increasing since their work began.
“Social media is connecting our children with people outside of our community and outside of our system and putting them at risk,” Hays said.
This year is the first time the event has reserved the whole bowling alley. Last year they raised $6,000 and this year they had raised more than $7,000 through sponsorships before the event even began, Hays said.
Alliance for Children will also hold a barbecue Aug. 2 at Moraine State Park.
