Walkathon at Baylake Focuses on Child Abuse
By Irene Bowers
(This article was published in The Beacon, a Virginian Pilot newspaper publication, on June 15, 2006.)
BAYSIDE — Sixty-seven miles at Baylake Pines equals real steps toward ending child abuse.
During a school walkathon on May 25 to benefit Stopabuse.com, Baylake Pines sixth-graders tallied their class laps for a total of 67¾ miles. As a whole, the school’s 409 students raised more than $5,000.
“The walkathon was a great thing to do for the community, especially when you’re having fun with your friends and helping kids at the same time,” said student council president Ravynn Sykes, an eighthgrader.
The walkathon was the area’s first school-based fundraiser for Stopabuse.com, a nonprofit organization founded by Regina Marscheider, local puppeteer and national director of Children’s Performance Workshops.
“These students have been wonderful and amazing,” said Marscheider. “It is especially meaningful for children to reach out to other children.”
Baylake Pines director Joan Eckert said the issue of child abuse is a problem that affects everyone.
“Child abuse isn’t restricted to any social class or group, but can occur in every type of family and school,” she said. “No one is immune to it, nor should we try to ignore it.”
Eckert said the event raised awareness among the school community and helped students understand that their actions matter.
Marscheider’s puppet show “Knock, Knock ... Who’s There?” was developed over five years “to teach children how to recognize, avoid or disclose abuse to a safety net provider.” First performed in 1991, it won the Emmy for Best Educational Documentary in 1993.
The show has traveled nationwide introducing audiences to Simon, a green puppet that helps children understand how to deal with abusive situa- tions. Whenever it’s performed, law enforcement officials, child protective services and school guidance counselors provide support for children who need it.
According to a 2003 newspaper story, one performance at a Norfolk school yielded 36 reports by children, five of which merited prosecution. The nonprofit Stopabuse.com envisions annual live and televised performances of the show in every elementary school nationwide, and is working toward that goal.
New to Stopabuse.com is the development of a show on bullying. “Bullying is another form of abuse that needs to be addressed,” said Krystyna Bublick, president of Stopabuse.com. “We try to give children the tools to correct their own behaviors, as well as how to handle a situation where they might be the victim of bullying.”
Bublick, an artist and selfdescribed possibility broker, has been at the helm for two years.
“Everything in this organization is about possibility – giving children the opportunity to see the possibility of telling someone, the possibility to not suffer any longer and be rescued, and the possibility of change.”
• Visit www.stopabuse.com or 491-2873.
With over $5,000 raised in the Stopabuse.com walkathon at Baylake Pines, students take a rest at the upper school. Kneeling, left: Callie Robinson, Ethan Stanfield, Brittani Schlimgen. Second row, left: Cayman Malig, Meghan Muway, Summer Schlimgen, Sydney Schlimgen, Stopabuse.com founder Regina Marscheider, Hunter Egger, Clarie Guhan. Back row, left: Jake Robinson, Vernon O’Berry and Stopabuse.com president Regina Marscheider and Krystyna Bublick.
