Back row L-R: Kathleen Bell, Abigail Davis, Rebecca Judy, Greg Collins, Shannon Vincent, Sharon Anderson, Kelly Allen
On Monday, April 1st, the West Virginia Child Advocacy Network (WVCAN) kicked off the second year of a campaign to raise awareness and funds for the 21 Child Advocacy Centers (CACs) across the state. Throughout April, #High5Drive asked individuals and businesses to give a High 5 and donate $5 for each child served at a West Virginia CAC last year. In fiscal year 2023, 4,879 brave WV kids walked through the doors of a CAC following allegations of sexual abuse, physical abuse, or neglect. 604 of those children were seen at North Star Child Advocacy Center(NSCAC), the highest number in the state.
Locally, NSCAC partnered again with Williamstown Bank. The bank’s branches in Williamstown, Lubeck, East 7th Street Parkersburg and south Parkersburg were official campaign site partners.
“What started out with what was thought to be a lofty goal of $5,000 for the campaign, ended up bringing in $17,419.00 and being our biggest fundraiser to date,” states Greg Collins, executive director on NSCAC. “A lot of things came together for this campaign to be successful. The passion of Sharon Anderson and all the employees of Williamstown Bank, the support from our community that has become more aware of the details of our center and the graphic nature of its mission, and very generous donationsby business partners of the bank and the friends North Star,” states Collins.
During the campaign, Williamstown Bank employees sold a total of 846 hands, each with messages of hope and inspiration to our local abused children. The bank branch on East 7th Street accounted for 406 of those hands. “Our team at Williamstown Bank has completely bought into the mission of North Star and I am so proud of our team for their efforts to make this campaign so successful,” states Sharon Anderson, president/CEO of Williamstown Bank. “This campaign is key for financial support, but more importantly our team has helped raise awareness about the reality of child abuse in our local community and the services North Star provides to both law enforcement and CPS,” states Anderson.
Collins says that another aspect of the successful campaign was support from the counties they serve other than Wood. “We had corporate support from Simonton Windows in Ritchie County and Calhoun Banks in Calhoun and Wirt Counties. We are Wood County based, but we help CPS, law enforcement and prosecutorsin all the counties we officially serve by providing them with forensic interviews and services for their children and non-offending guardians,” states Collins.
“I believe the results show just what our community is capable of when we work together and is a testament to the involvement of community banks on a local level. Williamstown Bank is grateful for the opportunity to partner with North Star CAC for the High5Drive,” concludes Anderson.
Collins concluded with appreciation to everyone for their help not only with this campaign, but with April and Child Abuse Awareness in general. “I can’t thank everyone enough who contributed to this campaign and to those people that are always consistently contributing to North Star to make sure we have what we need to do this important work. As we are currently in the process of expanding our services to areas of the most need for our children and our broken system, the money we raise is more important now than ever. We are attempting to get into the local budgets of our counties and municipalities with some potentially good news from one of our cities in the near future. Between ourefforts for sustained funding and the wave of support we are experiencing from our community in donating and gifting, I feel like we are in an amazing position. I know for a fact that we are showing others in the state what child advocacy centers, the community, corporations and political officials can do when they work together. People are talking about us and asking how we do it,” concludes Collins.
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 and Twitter. People wanting to contribute an estate gift can contact the Parkersburg Area Community Foundation (PACF) to leave an endowment or a legacy gift.
