I participate on a weight loss website called Sparkpeople. One of the people I have “met” on the site goes by the screen name of Sarge49. Sarge is taking on a big task in a couple of weeks and it’s one that we should be paying attention to.

Sarge lives in Minnesota and is making a 30 mile walk starting at the state capitol in St. Paul, MN. Is the man just crazy or is there more to it? There is far more to it. Sarge is walking to raise money and awareness for Alexandra House, a domestic violence shelter. His goal is to raise $200,000, which is 10% of the budget for one year.

Why should we care? Because most of the kids that we adopt are victims of domestic violence of some kind. Our kids have either been abused themselves or have witnessed abuse. My son is a victim of both. The first abuse that we know of happened when Sammy’s mom was seven months pregnant with him. She was beaten by his birth father. We will never know what, if any, damage it did to Sammy. The abuse continued and Sammy witnessed it on a regular basis, and by several different men. His birth mother had a history of relationships with men who abused her. Sammy saw it all. Sammy’s birth mother abused him as well and it’s possible that he was abused by some of the men that lived with his birth mother. The reports are unclear.

When we are dealing with children in foster care, stories like these are not uncommon. This may be in part the cause for them being in foster care.

October is national Domestic Violence Awareness Month and Sarge’s walk takes place on October 4, 2008. Alexandra House has a separate walk that will take place a week after Sarge’s walk. These were planned independently of each other but both are to bring awareness and raise funds.

Can walks like these help to bring awareness to the abuse our kids have suffered? I hope so. If nothing else it helps fund these desperately needed shelters. Maybe if the moms of our kids had known about, or been able to get to a shelter our kids might have been spared some level of the abuse they suffered, either by seeing it or being victimized by it.

If you live in or near Minnesota and would like to join Sarge on his walk, or if you would like to learn more, or even pledge money, visit his website. Let’s help to bring awareness to issues of domestic violence. I believe we can all agree that this is one thing we’d like to see eliminated.


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