National crime victims’ rights week

Male law enforcement, elected officials and district attorney staff assemble  before walking around the crime victim’s monument at the Frank Moore Judicial  and Administration Center in women’s shoes Wednesday to help raise awareness  during National Crime Victims’ Rights Week. The participants walk symbolized  that every 2.8 minutes one person is raped or sexually assaulted nationwide.  SKIP BUTLER/The Daily Tribune News
Read more:  The Daily Tribune News – National Crime Victims Rights Week

Duck Derby Weekend May 11-12

It’s Duck Season! Duck Derby Weekend May 11-12   It’s here! We are so excited to bring groovy back to Bartow County! We are celebrating 11 years of racing ducks with the 2012 DuckFest: Peace, Love and Ducks. There is a far-out event for everyone. Whether you are purchasing your Quack Pack, registering to run in the 5K Duck Dash or showing us your dance moves at the Rockin’ on the River Concert, there are plenty of ways to be involved! Friday May 11, 6-9 p.m.- Come shake a tail feather with us as we listen to the rockin’ stylings of Freeflight! Held at the Riverside Day Use Area, this free concert on the lawn is open to all those wishing to attend. Pack your own picnic basket and blanket as we kick-off a duck filled weekend! Want a seat closer to the action? Reserve a table for 8 for $100 by contacting Karen White at Karen@AdvoChild.org or by calling 770-387-1143. Don’t forget to Duckorate yourselves and your tables! Saturday May 12, 8 a.m.- Walk, run or waddle your way across the finish line in our 8th annual 5K Duck Dash and Fun Run! On-site registration will begin at 7 a.m. on May 12 at our Cartersville Primary School starting location. Take advantage of our Early Bird registration which gets you a reduced registration fee and guaranteed shirt size of your choice if you register before May 1…so get to Quackin’! The Duck Dash will begin at 8 a.m. and Fun Run racers will gear up for their race at 8:45 a.m. This year there will be a chip timing system on our flat, fast course, so that those runners can use the Duck Dash as a Qualifier. Visit www.AdvoChild org to register and learn more about how you can pound the pavement for prevention on May 12! Saturday May 12, 10 a.m.- 2012 DUCK DERBY! Have you bought your duck yet? We are looking to paint the town with peace, love and ducks this year and we can’t do it without you! This year’s Duck Derby will be held at the Riverside Day Use Area where we will watch 30,000 (our goal this year!) ducks race down the Etowah River to win you some amazing prizes! First duck across the finish line wins a 2012 Honda Fit courtesy of Honda Carland North plus dozens of other groovy prizes! Visit one of our Duck Sales sites around Bartow (look for the yellow “Get Your Ducks Here!” signs) or visit us online at www.AdvoChild.org to buy your ducks today! If every person in our community buys one duck we would be making a HUGE difference in the treatment and prevention of child abuse. Get your feathers ruffled! Buy a duck! Support Advocates! _____________________________

Two successful events under our belt!Every Child’s a Star and Spring Benefit March 24 was a busy day for Advocates’ supporters, staff and volunteers! Every Child’s a Star and the Spring Benefit both proved to be wonderfully successful events thanks to the care and dedication that our committees put into them. A special thank you to Mary Clayton Gilbert and the Every Child’s a Star committee for putting on a one of a kind show for the many spectators that came to cheer on our talent. We had singers, dancers, hoola-hoopers and more wow the crowd that evening as we ushered in the 2012 Every Child’s a Star Winners! Overall Winner: Morgan Cornwell Primary School Winner: Madelyn Brooky Elementary School Winner: Halle Collins Middle School Winner: Samantha Sims High School Winner: Barry Arrington Group Winner: The Newsies: Tyler Bucher, Clark Cumbee, Thomas Gilbert, Evan Nichols, Mathew Pryor, Clayton Reis and David Pye The 2012 Spring Benefit presented by Black Oak Asset Management proved to be another beautiful evening of live music, gourmet dinner, and live and silent auction items donated by our generous community. We would like to send a huge thank you to our Spring Benefit co-chairs, Regina Shaw and Barbara Terry and our tireless Steering Committee. Because of the you, this was our most successful Spring Benefit to date! Thank you to all those that came out to support these events and for continuing to show the thousands of children we serve just how dedicated and caring their community really is.

Share the AdvoLove – Photo adventure

 

Share the AdvoLove is a community wide photo
 adventure to help raise awareness about our kids in need, what is being done for them, and how you and others can help. This is your chance to make a personal impact and help spread the word about how Advocates helps to make Bartow County a better place to be a child.

 

We are asking our AdvoFans, friends and neighbors to participate by following these simple steps:

 

   1. Visit Duck Central loacted at 650 Henderson Dr., Suite 408 Cartersville, GA 30120, to have your photo taken.

   2. Write a message about why Advocates is important to you on poster board provided by Advocates.

   3. Have fun! Your photo can be a group shot or solo. Bring your pets, children, props, or anything else that helps to express your message.

 

Photos will premier at the Rockin’ on the River Concert on May 11 and will be distributed for display in local businesses this summer. All we ask is that you bring a positive message to share with your community, a smile, and your friends so we can continue to Share the AdvoLove!

National Crime Victims’ Rights Week 4/22- 4/28

The 2012 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week is taking place April 22nd-28th. This year’s theme is “Extending The Vision, Reaching Every Victim”. A 2011 statistic shows that every 2.8 minutes a woman is sexually assaulted. The Bartow County Victim Assistance Office will be highlighting this specific type of crime/victim next Wednesday, April 25^th at 12:15.

Several men (Elected Officials; Law Enforcement and District Attorney Staff) will walk around the circle in front of the courthouse in women’s shoes for approximately 3 minutes holding signs that say “Put Yourself in Her Shoes”.

We are looking to borrow women’s shoes (any style)-size 11 & up!

Your participation would be greatly appreciated as we work together to educate our community about crimes and their victims. Please respond to this email or give me a call at 678-721-3244 to let me know if you have any shoes we can borrow.

Thank you!

Julia Richards

Victim-Witness Assistance Director

Cherokee Judicial Circuit

Office of the District Attorney

135 West Cherokee Ave., Suite 368

Cartersville, GA 30120

ph.: 678-721-3244     fax: 770-387-5035

www.bartowga.org/vwap

Anniversary of the Great Locomotive Chase in NW GA

Uriah Stephens is recognized in two events in Kingston, Georgia on April 12^th, 2012

Agan’s Bakery commemorates the “Great Locomotive Chase”.

 

Co sponsors of the Kingston events are the Cartersville Bartow Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, Kingston Woman’s History Club, the Bartow History Museum and the Etowah Valley Historical Society.

Historian and EVHS Vice President, Joe Head, conceived this idea and carried out the plans for it. 

 

11:00 am.

            In the office of Mayor Ron Casey, Kingston, Georgia, the mayor and Bartow County Commissioner, Clarence Brown, will present a framed proclamation drawn up by Joe Head, Vice President of the Etowah Valley Historical Society, naming Uriah Stephens to be Kingston’s favorite son, an unsung hero of the Civil War, who previously has not been recognized.  Uriah Stephens was the Railroad Depot Agent in Kingston at the time of the Great Locomotive Chase on April 12, 1862.  Although the Chase covered five counties, the “Heart of the Chase”, that is the significant events of the chase, the greatest track distance covered, were in Bartow County.  Stephens is designated as Kingston’s voice of resistance by directly confronting the Union spy, James Andrews.  He denied Andrews’ repeated requests to give up the “Switch Keys” to the track, thus disallowing the General back on the main track.  He managed to delay Andrew’s departure due to personal suspicions as to why Andrews would be in command of the General, and also enlisted others to watch Andrews while the General was on a side track in Kingston for an hour.  During this time, the train’s rightful conductor, William A. Fuller, was in pursuit on the Yonah from Cooper’s Iron Works.  The proclamation will be presented to Stephens’ great-great

granddaughter, Betty Johnson of Sarasota, Florida, and to Johnson’s daughter, Jena Johnson of Athens, Georgia.  An additional copy will be given to the Kingston Woman’s History Club.  The honorees will speak upon receipt of the proclamation.  Trey Gaines, Director of the Bartow History Museum, will wear period clothing of the Depot Agent.  Dignitaries, state representatives, officials are invited. 

 

Lunch will be at Angelo’s II and the public is invited.  The honorees will be present.

 

At 1:30 pm.

            The Kingston Woman’s History Club will dedicate an engraved monument to Uriah Stephens placed behind the KWHC Museum.  Stephens’ descendents will be present; will be honored at a tea in the Museum following the ceremony.  The public is invited. 

 

Abbey Agan of Agan’s Bakery has designed a red iced teacake in the shape of the locomotive engine, The General.  Any child who comes into the bakery during the next month, who gives a fact about the “The Great Locomotive Chase” will be given a free cookie.  That child’s school will be given a point for that child’s participation.  The school with the most points wins a package of bakery goodies for their favorite local charity.

Advocates for Children, community hold candlelight vigil

Advocates for Children members and visitors lit candles Monday night at the Frank Moore Administration and Judicial Center as a way to remember victims of child abuse. JASON LOWREY/The Daily Tribune News

Advocates for Children members and visitors met on the steps of the Frank Moore Administration and Judicial Center Monday night, gathering for Advocate’s newest event, called a Light of Hope ceremony. Every candle lit was a way to recognize children in foster care and observe National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

Patty Eagar, executive director for Advocates, described the vigil as one more way of drawing attention to child abuse in Bartow County. “We’re trying to raise awareness of child abuse prevention and what people can and should be doing to fight child abuse and to help those who are already victims of child abuse.”

“We decided we needed to do more than plant pinwheels in the ground,” she continued, referencing the pinwheels planted at the NorthSide Bank in Adairsville.

Advocates board member Barry Adcock opened the event with a prayer saying, “Lord, help them [parents] to know and help us to communicate that there are resources out there for them if they are struggling with finances and marital issues and other family problems, and that taking it out on the child is not the answer.”

Bartow County Department of Family and Children’s Services Director Lynn Green, Bartow County Juvenile Court Judge Velma Tilley and Assistant District Attorney Rosemary Greene spoke to the crowd, and all emphasized the importance of preventing abuse and helping victims.

Judge Tilley in particular described the large number of people that work to protect and take care of the county’s children. “It is thanks to the hard work of the folks of the DCFS, at Court Appointed Special Advocates, our foster parents, our folks that end up adopting children and all the volunteers that are on our citizen’s review panel, the professionals that come and testify or that provide therapy for our children — it takes truly a village, and thank you for being part of that village.”

Advocates for Children’s next major event is a presentation featuring psychologists and sexual abuse experts Julie Medlin and Steve Knauts at the Cartersville-Bartow Chamber of Commerce. The event starts at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and the pair will discuss their recent book “Avoiding Sexual Dangers: A Parent’s Guide to Protecting Your Child.”

 

Brian Gallagher speaks at the worldwide forum in Davos

On January 27th, United Way Worldwide President and CEO Brian Gallagher spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The photo above was captured during the “Building Trust” session at the Forum’s 2012 Annual Meeting. Brian also participated in the “Leading Under Pressure” panel, discussing the importance of collaboration and the need for an active, engaged civil society.

Throughout the week-long series of meetings Brian talked about the many benefits, to all sectors, of investing in communities and people. “Attention must be focused on creating both economic and human opportunities,” he said. “There is no economic success, without long-term, enduring human success. People must be the priority.”

He suggested that they are also essential to any solution. “We need to get people back involved in creating community success. It’s the only way to create sustained change at scale.”

Brian is one of the Forum’s few Nonprofit/NGO sector leaders. Additional information on Brian’s sessions as well as the World Economic Forum can be found at http://www.weforum.org.

To learn more about local United Way activities visit United Way of Bartow County.

2012 Bartow County March for Babies

When:
Friday, May 4, 2012
5:30 p.m. Registration Begins
7:00 p.m. March Begins

Where:
Dellinger Park
Cartersville, GA
It’s not too Late to Register On-line Today at:

www.marchforbabies.org

Our #1 Team in Georgia raises their money in less than 3 weeks!

Event Reminders
***Avoid registration lines on event day and turn your fundraising dollars in early! Put your name in a drawing for prizes to be presented at the walk. You can do so by visiting the official March for Babies “Bank Day” location, Bank of America, at 102 E. Main St – Cartersville between the hours of 11:00a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Tickets!
The next Online Fundraising Challenge for Bartow County only! Raise the most money online between today and April 17th and get 4 tickets to the Booth Art Museum.

Sponsorship Opportunities
Day of event sponsorship opportunities are NOW available! What a great way to advertise your company! Contact Michele Beal for more details.

T Shirt Contest
Be sure to wear your Team T-Shirts to the March. Judging will be after the walk.

Supplies and Information!!
For more information about March for Babies or to get supplies please contact Michele Beal at mbeal@marchofdimes.com or 678.564.5231