The investigation of criminal cases involving children - whether the child is the victim or the witness - can itself be traumatizing. Alliance For Children is there to make it less so.
"We are involved typically from the initial response and then work with confirmed victims and families throughout the investigation and criminal court case," said Executive Director Julie Evans. "Last year, Alliance For Children served more than 2,000 children in one of our three centers located in Arlington, Fort Worth and Hurst."
The agency coordinates the joint investigation of law enforcement, Child Protective Services, Cook Children's Medical Center, the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office and Alliance For Children staff for serious, life-threatening cases of child abuse in Tarrant County, she said.
Half of Alliance For Children's budget is from federal, state and local government funding. The rest is from individuals, corporate and foundation funding and events. And part of that support comes from Aero Components Inc., a family-owned manufacturer of aerospace products.
The children of the company's founder - Becki Cate, Vecki Blake and Jon Williams - now run the company, and they've been major supporters of Alliance For Children for a decade.
"Becki joined the board of Alliance For Children and instantly became an active member," said Evans. "She provided leadership to our agency and challenged all of us to do more and think big for the hopes and futures of the children impacted by abuse in our community. She matched this tenacity with financial support of Alliance For Children, which deepened our capacity to support our programs. We feel "adopted" into the family, which is an honor to our staff and families."
The admiration is mutual.
"We are very emotionally attached to that organization," said Cate.
The family's support began as a sponsor for a fund-raising golf tournament. But they also have a suite at the Texas Rangers ballpark, and over the years have become close friends with Rangers players and management.
That led them to develop an entirely new fund-raising program for Alliance For Children,the Picnic at the Park, held for the second time this year in June at the ballpark. The picnic is the vision of the Cate, Williams and Blake families, Evans said.
The three siblings all spoke of an unnamed young man they hosted in their suite at the Rangers. He had been a witness to the violent deaths of his mother and brother and was stabbed himself. It was not until the person charged in the crimes was convicted, and that story made the news, that they connected that child to the one they had hosted.
Despite their long involvement in the organization, that experience was sobering. "That really put reality in it for me personally," said Blake.
