Community Highlight: Voices For Children- Part 2
Podcast Transcription
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Maddy: Hi everyone, thanks for tuning into PFCU’s Money Talk podcast, I’m your host Maddy. This is part 2 of my conversation with Sarah Zyburt, as a reminder she is the Vice President of Advocacy and Advancement at Voices For Children, a child advocacy center in Genesee County.
You had mentioned in your intro that you started being a volunteer here so what are those opportunities like for volunteering, donating, things like that for anyone who would like to look into that.
Sarah: Yeah, well, I mentioned our CASA program, Court Appointed Special Advocate. That program is our most time consuming, probably also the most rewarding because like I said, you’re matched up with a child or family. That volunteer opportunity, you go through a training, background checks and then once you’re through the training, it mostly involves meeting with the child and then attending court when they have court to advocate for them. So that is one of our opportunities. We also have annual events, at least 2 every year and we don’t have like event staff or a lot of money for those so having volunteers is really helpful. Similarly, we have what’s called a family host so when families come here for the first time, we want someone, you know, to greet them, who can kind of give them undivided attention. When they come in we offer the adult that accompanying, you know, coffee or tea, the child juice or if it’s a teenager, maybe soda and a snack so every kid that comes here gets those things. But as we work to keep administrative costs low, we don’t have like a reception person or even secretaries so family hosts help staff members be able to do their jobs without having to be interrupted getting the door so that’s another opportunity like that. We also have groups sometimes come in to do beautification projects. So, in the back of our campus we have what’s called a healing garden so it’s green space, we have flowers and some different vegetables growing that kids have planted and we have a firepit, we have a fountain and kind of, a meditation area. We do not have a groundskeeper or anything like that so any help with beautification, with winterizing the campus and similarly in Shiawassee so there’s opportunities like that. And kind of my favorite and one of the newer opportunities for volunteers is really being an ambassador for the center so attending community events, doing community outreach because we don’t really have a marketing budget so, you know, we’re always thankful for an opportunity to talk about what we’re doing and we have other people that are passionate about kids, passionate about this cause and so we provide a training for them and then they’re able to attend events. We get invited to a lot of events and it’s more than we have staffing capacity to attend so those are some of the volunteer opportunities. As far as donations, I’ll tell you like any other non-profit, cash donations are the most impactful because it allows us the flexibility to spend on whatever is urgently needed in that moment. We do have what’s called a pantry of love so when families come here, we used to have a process where, you know, we would kind of ask them what do you need and a lot of times they would say nothing even though that wasn’t the truth. And so now, we actually just have a little shop area where they can go in and pick out anything free. And it can be things from, you know, shoes for their kids, books, we have a lot of like hygiene supplies. So, one of the things we are always, always needing donated is ethnic haircare. So obviously, African American folks have different needs for their hair, they can’t just use a bottle of Suave and so those are expensive so if a family has been unhoused by an abuse situation, being able to provide that is something special that makes them feel welcome. And then the other big thing is gift cards, the reason for that is sometimes we have what’s called emergency placement so a child might suddenly get removed because there’s found to be abuse or trafficking. They get temporarily placed with a foster family and sometimes that happens and the foster family, depending on the age of the child or sometimes there’s special physical mental healthcare needs, doesn’t have the equipment they need so for example, I’ll say a car seat. You know, we might have a really young infant, the foster family might not have a car seat and it’s seven at night, if we have a gift card to Target, we can send a staff member up to Target, buy the car seat they need. We have partners to make sure they’re safely installed and we just don’t have a lot of capacity here at the center to store a bunch of car seats but when there’s that need, having the ability to just go out and buy it and similarly that will happen with trafficking. I know earlier this summer we had a survivor and she came in with no shoes, she didn’t have any shoes on and so, we were able to use a gift card and run out and you know, she left here with some shoes that she got to keep and they were nice quality
Maddy: Amazing, you guys do it all. I love it. Let’s see, you talked about your events. Do you want to touch on those a little bit? I know you said you have at least two every year, we talked about the Superhero Run. What are other events that people could maybe participate in?
Sarah: Yeah so, the other one I’m equally excited to talk about, in the spring we have an event called the Children’s Champion Awards and so, I think of this as the local to Genesee like Oscars or Emmys but for people who work with kids. And I think that is so rad because, you know, a lot of folks like educators, like coaches, they don’t get a lot of recognition, you know, they get the thanks you’s from kids and they’re not doing it for recognition but at the same time when we have an event that brings together a thousand people that says like, hey you’re a champion for children, that is showing value as a community for kids and people who work with kids. So, that event also provides some scholarships for high school kiddos who do volunteer work and who work with younger kids. It is always so uplifting, it’s early in the morning and this last year it took place in April. There’s usually a fun theme so it was spring break themed this last year, and it is just, we get such wonderful feedback and it’s probably my favorite event just because it’s way uplifting, like it’s great. So, it does function as a fundraiser for our center as well as the run and part of that is part of our funding comes from a federal grant that requires a 25% cash match and so our way of raising that is through those two events. Yeah, I really love that. Anyone in our community is able to nominate someone that they know and see doing a great job and nominations for that actually open in the fall and then they close by the holidays. It gives our judges time to meet and decide on the winners and then us get everything printed and in the program and get the awards printed by the spring. So, I encourage people to, absolutely the best two ways to kind of, stay up to date with what we’re doing are Facebook and Instagram. We have content every day, sometimes it’s a reshare from someone, sometimes it’s individual content that we’ve created but very active social media and then also our website. And so, when the nominations for Children’s Champion open, that will be advertised those two places. With the run coming up, we do have some coupons that get posted to get a couple dollars off signing up for the race and we usually when we have t-shirts and stuff there on social media, we just launched a Voices For Children store with some merchandise and that’s linked our website as well. And we’re really excited about that, I just spent $60 on some of it because I liked it so much.
Maddy: Yeah, that’s a good idea.
Sarah: So, all the proceeds from that store are going right to the kids.
Maddy: Right. Yeah, that’s a great idea. So you mentioned contact, Facebook, Instagram and the website. Is there anything else on your mind that you’d like to share?
Sarah: I just want to encourage people, so, something that, a lot of that work here, work here because we needed a place like Voices when we were kids and we didn’t have it. And so, I really want to encourage, you know, adult survivors, there’s a point where it’s too late to get help and support. And when we think about wanting to prevent generational abuse, something that breaks my heart and has happened more than once in the time that I’ve worked here is we have what is called a non-offending caregiver so a parent who isn’t suspected as a perpetrator of abuse, they bring their child in and while we’re talking with them while their child is in the interview, they will cry and disclose that they were hurt as a child and say something like, I just never wanted this to happen to them, I can’t believe that this has happened. And I think that there is so much unaddressed pain out there and the more that we can do as adults, be healing and be talking about this and destigmatizing because, you know, for children to understand hey this is not your fault, that’s a part of the education that we’re providing but so frequently abusers are using fear and shame to keep kids from sharing what happened to them and that carries through and still impacts adults. And so, I want to say, you know, if you’re hearing this and something happened to you, even if it was 10-20 years ago, you can come to us for help. We will get you connected because we want people to be thriving, you know, obviously it’s in our name, we want to be a voice for children and we know it takes all of us to keep our kids safe.
Maddy: Thank you so much, Sarah, for sharing about Voices For Children and the incredibly important work you all do. Make sure to follow them on Facebook and Instagram if you haven’t already and visit their website at voicesforcac.org to get more information on events, donations, services, resources and contact information. Also check out that merchandise that Sarah was talking about, they have some really great stuff and all proceeds go to the kids!
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