CAC, CASA to host Answers for Advocacy Trivia Night

The Children's Advocacy Center for the First Judicial District and Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children of Northeast Tennessee are partnering up for a night of education and awareness with their fundraiser, Answers for Advocacy Trivia Night. Samantha Prater, executive director of CAC of the First Judicial District, and Melanie Feathers, executive director of CASA, said the fundraiser's purpose is to highlight both organizations' missions in aiding children. "It is just to bring awareness to what we are doing every day and what CASA is doing every day," Prater said. "Ultimately, it would benefit both of our programs." "The fundraiser is going to equally benefit both organizations – we'll split the proceeds," Feathers said. "On CASA's end, what the proceeds for us do is it allows us to operate our day-to-day operations to recruit volunteers, to provide them with proper supervision [and] to provide them with supplies they need." The fundraiser will feature door prizes for round winners, and the trivia will be a mixed amount of questions for participants to answer. It will be held in April, known as Child Abuse Prevention month. While both CAC and CASA provide services to help children in abusive or neglectful situations, the practices of each of the organizations are different. Prater explained CAC acts as a segue between different agencies and groups in getting help for a child in a harmful circumstance. "We got started to fill the gap in child abuse investigations between child protective services and law enforcement," she said. "There was just the realization that communication there was not happening, and so Bud Kramer, a [district attorney] out of Huntsville, Alabama, created the CAC model and it's spread across the entire country to link all these services together." CASA, however, works a little bit differently. Feathers said the organization is volunteer-driven and serves abused and neglected children in juvenile court. Once CASA volunteers collect information from the children, it is given to a judge to help in ruling in a child's case. "What that looks like is we train community volunteers to be able to advocate, to speak up for, to be the voice for abused and neglected children in cases of dependency and neglect," Feathers said. "So, these volunteers get to know everything about the child." Prater and Feathers said while the proceeds are a benefit to hosting the fundraiser, the chance to educate the community on what is happening to children around them is the driver behind hosting the event. "We are just hoping to raise awareness for both agencies," Prater said. "About what the agencies do individually, how they help kids in totality and raising awareness on kids and what they deal with every day." "As much as we want this to be a fundraiser and both of us need dollars to be able to do what we're doing, I also hope it just introduces folks to the mission of our organizations and the need for our community to wrap support around children who've experienced abuse and neglect," said Feathers. The trivia night will take place at 5 p.m. on April 11 at the Johnson City Brewing Company Boones Creek Taproom, located at 2362 Boones Creek Rd. Those interested in attending can register at www.casanetn.org.