On Saturday, December 21st, North Star Child Advocacy Center (NSCAC) will be holding its second annual fundraising and awards gala at the Parkersburg Art Center from 6-10 p.m.
At last year’s inaugural event, North Star Night Out had 190 people show up at the Art Center to support North Star and its mission to help and heal children suffering from child abuse. NSCAC officially serves Wood, Wirt, Pleasants, Ritchie and Calhoun Counties. NSCAC also partners with Child Protective Services, law enforcement and prosecutors in those counties, providing them with forensic interviews and medical exams for their child abuse investigations.
In addition to great food by Valley Catering and a cash bar by Wine Down on Market, there will bean Art for Advocacy Silent Auction featuring art from children in the five-county service area. “We had some wonderful pieces last year, but I think this year is going to be even more amazing,” states Greg Collins, executive director of NSCAC. “We’ve had good feedback from our counties this year and some of the work may entail wood working and metal projects, in addition to traditional art pieces. Some 3D art projects already submitted are beautiful,” states Collins.
One of the more significant functions of North Star Night Out is giving awards to those that have gone above and beyond what was required of them to serve our children or in assistance to NSCAC itself. “Everyone who gets up every day and goes to work for kids deserves an award. Everyone who does something directly to help North Star function at the highest level for our children deserves an award. We tried to pick people who truly excelled in this mission,” states Collins. This week, the list of this year’s Shooting Star Award winners was compiled by North Star staff. With possible later additions, the current list includes Williamstown Bank-North Parkersburg Branch, The Giving Cup, Krista Fleegle (Asst. Prosecutor Ritchie Co.), Delegate Scot Heckert, Sgt. Shane Semones (Parkersburg PD), Amanda Rubenstein and assistance dog CREIGHTON, Amber Holbert (NSCAC Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner), Barbara Gunsch (Faith Gospel Church), Darliss Eichhorn (Celanese), Janet Brandsasse (Investigator Parkersburg PD) and Russell Skogstad (Asst. Prosecutor Wood County). “This group has done amazing things in 2024 for our children, and we are proud to honor them in this small way,” states Collins.
Collins states there is an addition to this year’s North Star Night Out, coming from recommendations from some of the ladies attending last year’s event. “I had no idea that buying a new dress for our Christmas cocktail gala would be such an enormous part of the equation. The ladies were buying dresses months ahead of the event and many wanted to be able to kick off their heels and dance out the night in their new dress. So, as requested, we will close out the evening this year with dancing by our event production provider, Premiere Productions Entertainment, from around 8:30 to 10:00 p.m.,” states Collins.
Collins states that looking around the room last year at all the people within our community that were there supporting North Star was inspiring. “Child abuse is a real problem, and the details of the sexual and physical abuse are nothing less than evil. The degree of neglect some of our kids areliving with is worse than some of the conditions our pets live in, and that is a fact,” states Collins. “North Star is the busiest of the 21 child advocacy centers in the State of West Virginia, think about that. We have that many cases and our Child Protective Services and law enforcement are doing a great job getting them here. Not only so we can help with the investigations, but also so we can start to get the kids and non-offending families on their healing path and get them the help they need to succeed in life, which can obviously take years,” concludes Collins.
Coca-Cola is the title sponsor for this year’s North Star Night Out. Sponsorships for the gala are still being offered in several different packages, with Perry and Associates, M.C. Augstkalns, Celanese and Williamstown Bank already backing the event. V96.9 and CAS Cable are in-kind sponsors and will be airing the information. Individual tickets are $50, with table reservations available for $600.
Tickets and/or sponsorships can be purchased at https://northstarcac.ticketspice.com/north-star-night-out-2024. Interested people can also go to northstarcac.org and go under events to get the information.
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