Pictured: Chief Carl Powell, Greg Collins, Mayor Randy Rapp
On Monday, North Star Child Advocacy Center (NSCAC) received a check from the City of Vienna for $15,000. Vienna City Council voted to include North Star in the budget to help support their mission. Of the 21 child advocacy centers in West Virginia, nine (9) are receiving county funding and three (3) are receiving municipal funding.
North Star is the largest and the busiest child advocacy center in the state, with this being the first time they have been included in a local government budget. “This is one of those things where you look back 10 years from now and think, this was a defining moment in our history,” states Greg Collins, executive director of NSCAC. “Being included in a budget means we can plan farther out than one year. Our goal is to be able to put services in place such as on-site full-time therapy. There are kids who need therapy the day they are seen at the center, but with the limited trauma therapy resources, they must go on a waiting list. That’s not acceptable to us. Unfortunately, we can’t hire a therapist when the money we get is year to year. Obviously, no one can work without long-term security with the position,” states Collins.
Vienna Police Chief Carl Powell states, “The Vienna Police Department would like to express our gratitude to Vienna City Council for their generosity. Vienna City Council voted to support North Star Child Advocacy Center as part of the yearly budget. North Star is a vital resource for all Wood County Law Enforcement agencies when investigating cases involving children. These forensic interviewers take care of hundreds of cases a year involving physically and sexually abused children. The forensic interviewers receive specialized training to interview juveniles that have lived through great trauma. North Star is mainly funded through grants and private donations from businesses/citizens in the community. Planning for the future is difficult without knowing your guaranteed budget for the upcoming years. Therefore, I commend the Vienna City Council for stepping up to help with the fight against crimes affecting our children in Wood County. I encourage any company or individual that is looking to make a difference in Wood County, contact Greg Collins at the North Star Child Advocacy Center.”
Local government support for North Star has been more prevalent in the past few months. In February, the City of Vienna made a $10,000.00 donation to North Star after a presentation by Collins to their City Council. Collins also spoke to the Wood County Commission in November of 2023, with a $10,000 donation coming earlier this month. “I’m not selling anyone on what we dowhen I speak to them, I don’t have to. I state the facts, give examples of the type of abuse we see daily and provide statistics,” states Collins.
On July 1st of this year, NSCAC lost the Encova (once BrickStreet) grant that has been utilized for the last eight (8) years, providing $50,000 per year, as it no longer exists. NSCAC’s VOCA (federal) grant was frozen at the 2021 amount. After some smaller yet significant cuts over the past three years, the projected VOCA cut for October 2025 is between 70%-75%. VOCA is 42% of North Star’s budget. (VOCA is The Victims of Crime Act Fund that was created by Congress in 1984 to provide federal support to state and local programs that assist victims of crime. VOCA is not funded by taxpayers, it is funded by fines/arrests of convicted criminals.)
Mayor Randy Rapp’s statement regarding the budget inclusion was brief and to the point. “There is not much of a higher priority to me than taking care of our children. Our entire City Council was completely on board with this immediately.”
Collins concludes, “My genuine thanks to the City of Vienna, mayor and council members. At the end of the day, these are our abused kids that we are seeing. Not the federal governments or the state’s, they’re ours. This is worse than anyone knows, I guarantee. If we don’t successfully intervene, many of these children will likely be the next generation of adult problems that we are trying to fix.”
North Star is a non-profit that until the City of Vienna’s budget inclusion, had no long-term, defined, sustainable funding source. The money the center uses to operate mainly comes from federal and state grants, foundations and donations from the public. North Star is an important piece of the child investigation puzzle, as they are not only assisting law enforcement, CPS and prosecutors, they are focused on the child and non-offending family members and getting them the help and tools they need to heal and be a productive member of our community, for as long as they need it.
People can contact North Star at 304-917-4437 or via email nscac@northstarcac.org to learn more about how you can help. You can also visit them at northstarcac.org or follow them on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. People wanting to contribute an afterlife donation can contact the Parkersburg Area Community Foundation (PACF) to leave an endowment or a legacy gift.
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