Page 18 - April 2016 Life In Naples Magazine

Imagine:A COMMUNITY WHERE

CHILD ABUSE IS NOT TOLERATED

Being walkers with the dawn and morning, but none of the simple joys of just being alive? That’s what it’s like
Walkers with the sun and morning, for more than 2,200 children brought to the Children’s Advocacy
We are not afraid of night, Center of Collier County every year. Many have spent their entire
Nor days of gloom, young lives experiencing only pain and fear as victims of physical
Nor darkness-- and sexual abuse.
Being walkers with the sun and morning.
–Langston Hughes So maybe it’s no coincidence that National Poetry Month
should coincide with National Child Abuse Prevention Month.
A pril is National Poetry Month. Poetry celebrates with It is also the 30th anniversary of the Children’s Advocacy Center.
words all that is beautiful and exquisite, intense and For 30 years, the CAC has been dedicated to improving the lives
powerful. Poetry expresses the full range of feelings of abused children; to help them out of that dark place of pain
we experience in our lives. There are moments of pain and hopelessness, as expressed in this beautiful poem by Langston
and sadness, but also times of bliss, unconditional love, playfulness Hughes, into a place where they can walk in a place of light,
and hope. without fear.

Imagine if all poetry expressed only despair and hopelessness, CAC typically serves children referred by law enforcement or
the Florida Department of Children and Families. These are the
most severe or complex cases of child abuse and child witnesses

18 Life in Naples | April 2016