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Local athletes race to stop the tearsMore than 240 runners and walkers took their mark March 15 at Tradition and set out on a 5K run to break the cycle of child abuse.
The number was 62 percent greater than last year’s 148 runners and walkers, who participated when United for Families first unrolled its Stop the Tears 5K Run, 1 Mile Walk and Family Festival.
The run was the agency’s kickoff event for its Stop the Tears campaign to break the cycle of child abuse. It grossed more than $10,000 and featured the musical talents of Sweet Justice and attracted about 600 people including 82 volunteers and 40 vendors.
Proceeds from the event, which was sponsored by Little Caesar’s Pizza of Vero Beach, Tropicana, Homecrete Homes, Rosenthal, Levy and Simon, Gerelco Electrical Contractors, Sunbelt Rentals of Fort Pierce, and Hurricane Wings, will help fund programs that support foster parents, send children to summer camp, provide child safety seats and support grandparents and other relatives who care for children in the court dependency system.
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Jennifer Bresnahan, left, recently was named United for Families' Case Manager of the Quarter. Here, she gets a hug from her supervisor, Alisa Carter.
Bresnahan was given a $250 bonus check, a gift basket and two complimentary tickets to the Toyota of Stuart Le Bal Masque, which is Oct. 18.
United for Families Chief Executive Officer Christine Demetriades presents the Case Manager of the Quarter award to a surprised Bresnahan.
United for Families Community Resource Coordinator Lea Ely prepares for the Stop the Tears 5K race, which was March 15.
Leslie Haviland-Smith, event coordinator, has a few minutes of fun before getting down to business. Here, she bounces in an inflatable soon to be filled with happy children.
United for Families Development Director Christina Kaiser and Linda Smith, volunteer coodinator, take a break from staking out the event and do a little jig.
Children of all ages had their own races during the 5K. The children's races were divided into three age catagories, and ranged in ages from 3 to 12.
Haviland-Smith gives last minute instructions to a volunteer group from New Horizons of the Treasure Coast. The substanc-abuse and mental-health provider sent more than 20 volunteers to the event.
United for Families staff also volunteered at the event. From left, Suzette Sookdeo, Rusty Kline, Cerena Wallace and Denise Rivan discuss their next move.
Cyndi Hurst, a United for Families foster parent and owner of Serendipity Therapeutic Massage and Bodyworks, donated chair massages to race participants.
Winners from the race include Jon Williams, 39, of Coconut Grove, who crossed the finish line at 17 minutes, 54 seconds, making him the men’s overall winner; and Tara McFarlane, 28, of Fort Pierce
It was a warm day for runners, who passed a water station along their 5K route.
The youngest racers bolt from a standstill and take a very temporary lead ahead of their older, more disciplined competitors.
Moments earlier, racers wait patiently for the starter to sound. The route led racers around Tradition's scenic lake and through developing neighborhoods.
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United for Families News
- Traffic roared, horns blasted and wind blew. But you could have heard a pin drop March 27 when, on-by-one, more than 100 child advocates tied ribbons to a nearby tree in memory of little lives shattered by child abuse.
“Think of a child you know or worked with who was abused or neglected, as you go to the tree, and pin a blue ribbon in his or her honor,” said Christine Demetriades, chief executive officer of United for Families, which hosted the ribbon-tying ceremony, part of the organization’s Stop the Tears campaign to break the cycle of child abuse.
More than 100 people attended the event, which was held outside, under a canopy of oak trees that rims the busy northeast corner of U.S Highway 1 and Port St. Lucie Boulevard.
Guest speakers included United for Families Board President Pat McCoy, a foster parent and the mother of three adopted children, and Colette Carey, a former United for Families client who lost and then was reunified with her child.
- United for Families honored Ashley Ritchie, the agency’s first Associates of Arts degree recipient in its Road to Success program, March 25, with a $1,000 incentive award.
Ritchie, 20, was given the award for pursuing a higher education. Nationwide, foster children are less likey than their non foster-care counterparts to graduate high school or go to college. Ritchie, however, is studying early childhood education and wants to become a teacher. She will begin classes at Florida Atlantic University this fall to pursue her BA degree.
Ritchie now is eligible to receive a $2,500 award, which will be given when she receives her BA degree.
- Jennifer Bresnahan, a dependency case manager for Family Preservation Services, was awarded the United for Families Case Manager of the Quarter Award March 25 during an in-service training about ethics.
United for Families created the award as a way to recognize and better support the efforts of dependency case managers, who coordinate services for children in the dependency court system. It was the first time Bresnahan won the award, which has become the centerpiece of United for Families’ program to train and retain quality social workers and stabilize the child-welfare system for children.
- A local nurse and children’s advocate is the latest individual to join the United for Families Board of Directors. Marilyn Lawless, a St. Lucie County resident who spent 12 years as a high-school teacher and who has more than 40 years experience as a registered nurse, said she joined the board to advocate on behalf of the community’s most vulnerable children.
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Caregiver News- United for Families’ Book Worm Babies Birthday Club had a lot to celebrate on March 8 when the Junior League of Martin County hosted a Barnes & Noble book fair to benefit the child-welfare organization.
The book fair, which sold more than $1,500 worth of merchandise, generated enough sales to help celebrate United for Families’ Book Worm Babies Birthday Club for the next six months, said Lea Ely, United for Families Community Resource Coordinator. The book worm club provides new books to children in foster care during their birthday month, she said.
More than 960 new books have been distributed since the project launched in 2004.
- St. Lucie County school children collected enough shampoo, soap and toothpaste for 350 foster children during United for Families’ 2008 Have a Heart, Do Your Part Toiletry Drive.
The drive, now in its sixth year, helps provide toiletries to children in the local foster-care system, said drive coordinator Lea Ely. The toiletries are available to caregivers when children are placed in their homes.
Students from schools throughout St. Lucie County, as well as volunteers from the Lakes of Tradition, donated more than $2,000 worth of toiletries. - The apartments of most young adults are a happy patchwork of castoff odds and ends — the ugly sofa mom never wanted in the house, the garish painting dad wasn’t allowed to have in the house and the pots and pans that cooked up a thousand family meals.
But family hand-me-downs are a luxury most teenagers in foster care don't have.
That’s why United for Families is asking the community to donate apartment kits for students in its Road to Success program, which teaches the ABCs of adulthood to teenage foster children at risk of aging out of the system. These kits ideally would contain basic kitchen wares, linens and cleaning supplies, preferably new.
Two groups have donated kits since the program began earlier this year: the Day Lillies, from White City Methodist Church and Beta Sigma Phi, a women’s philanthropy group.
Each kit is worth about $150. About 10-20 are needed each year.
For more information about the program, please call Lea Ely at (772) 398-2920 Ext. 297 or visit us at www.unitedforfamilies.org. - United for Families volunteers have begun an on-going project that will help generate money for the Shoes that Fit program, which gives shoe vouchers to children in care. Volunteers make custom-designed flip-flops and sell them at community events for $10. Volunteers have sold more than 30 shoes and raised more than $300 so far. For more information, please call Linda Smith at 398-2920.
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Community News
- United for Families will host Coffee with the Mayor April 18 in honor of Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention month.
Christine Demetriades, chief executive officer for United for Families, will be the event’s featured speaker.
Coffee with the Mayor is held every third Friday of the month at Historic City Hall, 315 Ave. A, Fort Pierce. The networking event begins at 8:00 a.m.
- A group of women business owners in Martin County will present Girls’ Night Out – Hollywood Style from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. April 24 at Indian Riverside Park, in Jensen Beach.
Proceeds from ticket sales to the event will benefit United for Families. Tickets are $10 each and include complimentary wine, snacks and an evening of shopping.
Girls’ Night Out will feature a fashion show and offer the wares of local businesses, including those from a clothing boutique, hair salon, sandal-maker and purse designer.
- Wings fans can take the taste of Hurricane Grill and Wings home during the month of April during a month-long product promotion that also will benefit foster children.
Proceeds from wing sauce sales at the St. Lucie West and Tradition stores will benefit United for Families.
Dave Nardi, operations manager for the stores, said he decided to help United for Families because he was impressed with the organization and what it stands for.
“I also like the fact that this is a local charity and that the money raised with go toward helping out people close to my home,” Nardi said.
Proceeds from the sauce sale will help fund a mentor program that decreases the number of times foster children move from home-to-home as well as programs that provide support to relative caregivers and teach independent-living skills to teenage foster children.
Six sauces are for sale during the promotion and include: maple pepper glaze, bourbon, Thai ginger, honey balsamic barbeque, gold rush and chipolte raspberry. Each sauce is $5.95.
- United for Families will host its Second Annual Teeing Off Fore Kids charity golf tournament May 30 at Panther Woods Country Club, in Fort Pierce.
Golfers will receive 18 holes of golf at a private club, use of a golf cart, lunch and a barbecue dinner, event polo shirt, golf towel and a sleeve of golf balls. Awards, raffles, silent auction and a putting contest also will be offered.
The event, sponsored by Global Safety LLC, Sam’s Club and Hometown News, is $125 per golfer, or $500 per foursome. Registration will begin at 11:30 a.m., and the tournament will begin with a shotgun start at 1 p.m. United for Families hopes to attract 100 golfers, and is particularly interested in promoting corporate teams.
For information, call Leslie Haviland-Smith at 398-2920 or register online at unitedforfamilies.org.
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