In front of the Marion County Courthouse 99 blue pinwheels spin in the wind. The pinwheels represent children who are victims of abuse and who have received services from Kids Hub in Hattiesburg.
“We’re also planting them at First Southern Bank on U.S. 98 and First United Methodist Church,” Karie Chatham, community outreach coordinator for Kids Hub, said. “This year, we decided to plant them at every courthouse in the counties we serve. Marion is one of the counties we serve, so this courthouse will have 99 pinwheels to represent the children that we serviced in our center from here in 2017.”
Kids Hub serviced more children in the larger counties, Forrest and Lamar, but Marion has a high number per capita, according to Kids Hub Director DiDi Ellis.
According to Ellis, a child advocacy center is a child-friendly facility where representative from different disciplines work together to protect abused children. All of the services at Kids Hub are provided at no cost to the children, families or agencies involved.
“We opened in July 2015 with a goal of servicing children when there had been an allegation of physical abuse, sexual abuse or if a child had witnessed a violent crime,” she said. “When we started out, our service area included Lamar and Forrest counties. We began that in July 2015, and by August; we had added Marion County because of the overwhelming need of what we offered.”
“This is our second year to do the pinwheel gardens,” Ellis said. “They are very good at making the point of how many children we served.”
Chatham said that the 99 pinwheels may only scratch the surface of actual cases that exist in Marion County.
“Statistically we know that for every case reported, there could be many more that no one reported,” she said.
Pictured Above: Columbia Police Capt. Rita Pickering, Kids Hub Executive Director DiDi Ellis and Police Chief Michael Kelly gather in front of the 99 pinwheels placed on the Marion County Courthouse lawn to mark child abuse victims assisted in Marion County in 2017. | Photo by Mark Rogers
