“So April is prevent child abuse awareness month. And we have partnered with Prevent Child Abuse Illinois for many years in trying to bring awareness to the community about the prevention of child abuse. One of the ways that we do that is through our annual pinwheel garden, and we like to display it here at Safety Town,” said Karyn Charvat, juniorettes advisor at Naperville Junior Woman’s Club.
Third time
This is the third time the garden has been planted at Safety Town.
“We join together with the Exchange Club of Naperville, Prevent Child Abuse Illinois, the Junior Women’s Juniorettes, and also Bikers Against Child Abuse. So we all joined together to plant the garden here at Safety Town,” said Dawn Portner, director at the Exchange Club of Naperville.
Awareness at Safety Town
Almost 100 pinwheels were planted around the facility to help bring awareness to the cause.
“Pinwheels represent a happy, healthy childhood that all children deserve. And a lot of people don’t know or are not aware of the fact that over 216,000 hotline calls to the DCFS hotline were made last year. So it’s really important to bring about the awareness and pinwheels are a great reminder of the happy, healthy childhoods,” said Jennifer Samartano, prevention specialist at Prevent Child Abuse Illinois.
“Rearview mirror”
“One day we hope we don’t have to be here and child abuse will be in our rearview mirror. But until then, we’re going to be here to make sure everybody knows about our groups and how we’re going about preventing child abuse from happening,” said Portner.
The pinwheels will be on display at Safety Town until the end of April.
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