First lady announces $50,000 state gift for group to aid abused kids

PINE BLUFF -- An organization that provides guidance for children who face mental and physical abuse will receive additional support from Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

First lady Susan Hutchinson announced Tuesday at the Donald W. Reynolds Community Services Center that the governor will give $50,000 to the Children's Advocacy Center of Pine Bluff.

Susan Hutchinson said children who face mental and physical abuse need guidance to re-enter their interrupted childhood.

"We want to help right the wrongs that have been in their lives and help these children blossom to do what the good Lord intended them to do," Susan Hutchinson said.

The $50,000 will be split between opening a satellite office that is being considered in the Monticello area and a forensic interviewer, said Christa Menotti, the Children's Advocacy Center's executive director.

Tuesday's visit was Susan Hutchinson's first to the Pine Bluff center, but it wasn't her first interaction with the Arkansas organization.

The former schoolteacher has spent the past several years on the board of the Children's Advocacy Center of Benton County -- one of 14 such centers around the state that work with abused children. Hutchinson said she hopes to see the establishment of more Children's Advocacy Centers in Arkansas, perhaps eventually for the state to have one in every county.

Hutchinson met with workers who man the Pine Bluff office, along with politicians, law enforcement officials and attorneys who prosecute cases against abusers of children.

Hutchinson told the crowd her husband understood the need for such agencies. She said that years ago while living in Rogers, a close friend revealed to her that the friend had been abused by her father. Hutchinson teared up as she recalled those conversations with her friend and how her friend had faced it alone.

"There was no help, and I heard about it 15 years later," she said. "I found out about it when I was a soccer mom with her. We want the law to be there when something like this happens and prosecutors to get justice for these children and these atrocities they have suffered. ... We want children to go back on a path they were meant to be.

"Asa was a prosecutor. He knows all about this, and these things grabbed his heart, too. He knows that Pine Bluff needs these funds to function."

Hutchinson praised the work of those at all Children's Advocacy Centers across the state, saying the workers were not in the business for the money.

"This is a heart mission, and everything they do, everything they hear, breaks their heart," Hutchinson said. "But they have hope for the children. ... Like President Kennedy said, children are the messages we send into the future that we will likely not see."

State Desk on 06/23/2016

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