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Police collect food for Children's Advocacy Center
By Chris Roark, croark@starlocalnews.com
For a few hours last week, Flower Mound Police Detective Joe Adcock took a break from investigating crime to serve the community in another way.
For the fourth year, the police department has participated in an effort to collect food from local businesses and deliver them to the Children's Advocacy Center for Denton County (CACDC) in Lewisville in time for Thanksgiving.
The CACDC is a nonprofit organization that helps children heal after they have been sexually or physically abused.
"So much of what I deal with involves negative situations," said Adcock, who interviews child abuse victims as part of a joint effort between the police department and the CACDC. "It's important to me that the police department is involved in other aspects of the center. It's also important to give back to the community, so I volunteer my time whenever I can."
Nationstar Mortgage, which has five locations in the area, including four in Lewisville, was the largest contributor, donating 190 boxes of food. On one day alone, Nationstar donated 60 boxes of food.
During the initiative, FMPD and the CACDC collected food from five Nationstar locations.
Each year, the CACDC provides a list of items needed for a traditional Thanksgiving meal and other items that can be used for the entire week -- children are typically off from school making food more of a necessity for the week -- and businesses or individuals can donate things on that list, including a gift card for the purchase of the turkey.
Organizers said the food drive is important because so often individuals who experience child abuse must leave the situation and thus ends up in another home where food is needed.
"Sometimes you end up with combined families in a household because of the abuse," said Wandaliz Elder, bilingual service coordinator for the CACDC. "So it can be a big financial drain."
The CACDC works with several entities to help in its mission, such as law enforcement agencies throughout Denton County, Child Protective Services (CPS), juvenile probation, the District Attorney's Office and sexual assault nurse examiners.
The CACDC has a variety of programs, including forensic interviews. Four highly trained interviewers talk to the abused children to gather information for law enforcement and CPS.
The center provides a variety of family services, including the Thanksgiving food drive. Other services include follow-up visits to make sure their needs are met, as well as school supply drives and Christmas toy collections.
Therapy and counseling is another service offered by the CACDC, as well as prevention education, which discusses ways to prevent and recognize abuse and how to keep children safe.
For information on how to donate for the Christmas toy drive, the school supply drive or any other initiative, go to www.cacdc.org.
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