BY DONNA SWICEGOOD

Nearly 100 people gathered in Mooresville’s Liberty Park to give a voice to the voiceless.

Foster Love Adopt Repeat (FLAR), a Mooresville-based organization that raises awareness of the need for foster and adoptive homes for children and provides resources to foster, adoptive and kinship parents, held a candlelight vigil Saturday. The vigil was to remember the 32 children in North Carolina who died at the hands of a parent or caregiver in the past year.

Wheels, president of the Mooresville chapter of Guardians of the Children, a group of motorcycle enthusiasts who use their bikes as tools to help children who have overcome abuse to become strong, confident and courageous again, said that among the statistics on child abuse in the United States, one sticks out.

“Only one out of three child abuse cases are reported before that individual reaches 18, which means if a child is abused at a young age they live with that trauma for their entire life until they become an adult and feel like they have a voice,” he said. “That’s why things like tonight, communities like ours that work together to help protect children, (are) extremely important for these kids to know that their voice is heard.

“We have a saying in Guardians of Children that says don’t let your silence drown out their cries.”

Wheels said the community has an obligation to speak up for these children. “Most often times we’re the only voice that they’ll ever have,” he said.

Alyse Breger, who co-founded FLAR with her husband Jeremy, said that as foster parents they see the effect of child abuse firsthand.

“The effects are lifelong,” she said. “No child should have to endure the pain and suffering, let alone at the hands of their parents or caregivers.”

She said child abuse is 100 percent preventable.

“We all share in the responsibility to keep children safe,” Breger said.

Breger said conversations about child abuse are necessary.

“We have to acknowledge the problem in order to provoke change. We have to acknowledge that this is happening right here in our city, in our community and in our neighborhoods,” she said.

Indicating two tables containing 32 teddy bears, Breger said they represent the 32 children who died in North Carolina in the past year.

She said the statistics on child abuse are staggering.

A report of child abuse is made every 10 seconds in the country and five children die every day as a result of child abuse, Berger said.

As a trio of musicians played, Breger encouraged those gathered on the lawn at Liberty Park to light their candles in memory of victims of child abuse.

Pastor Toni Ruth Smith, senior pastor of Williamson’s Chapel United Methodist Church, closed out the vigil.

“I was thinking about these 32 children and about the transformation that didn’t happen in the people that harmed them. If we want to stop cycles of abuse we have to do the very hard work of helping people to transform their hurts and their pains and their agonies and the very worst that has happened to them so it doesn’t continue to perpetuate,” she said.

Smith said it’s important to keep your eyes open. She asked for a show of hands for anyone who has called authorities regarding child abuse.

“It is a hard call to make. And it’s an important call to make, and more of us should be willing to make those phone calls because if abuse isn’t really happening no harm no foul. We’ve lost a little bit of time. But if abuse is really happening we potentially saved someone’s life,” she said.