Table of Contents
Pinwheels spun into the earth at Charles Hill Park on Friday as Alexandria Celebrates Women hosted its annual garden planting to mark Child Abuse Prevention Month, drawing Mayor Alyia Gaskins, Police Chief Tarrick McGuire and representatives from agencies across the city for a noon ceremony that included a mayoral proclamation and a recognition for a local child advocacy organization.
Pat Miller, who organized the event, opened the gathering before turning the program over to Gaskins, who thanked the crowd for showing up in force.
"It's really inspiring to see so many people here not only from our agencies like the police department and the Department of Community and Human Services, but so many community partners as well," Gaskins said. "At the end of the day, we know that we cannot prevent and stop child abuse and neglect without community."
Gaskins had previewed the event earlier Friday in her daily social media video, urging residents to join at noon. "We come together to reaffirm our support to preventing child abuse and neglect," she said in the video. "We come together in community to support survivors and to wrap around them with additional services and support."
At the park, Gaskins read a formal proclamation on behalf of the Alexandria City Council, citing sobering local statistics: the city's Child Protective Services hotline received 1,449 referrals last fiscal year involving allegations of neglect, mistreatment, physical, emotional or sexual abuse and exploitation. The Children's Advocacy Center Program, facilitated by the Center for Alexandria's Children, reviewed 169 cases of severe child abuse and forensically interviewed 76 children. In fiscal year 2025, the city's Sexual Assault Center provided direct services to 77 children and their families who experienced childhood sexual abuse.
"Every Alexandria child deserves a safe, loving family and to have their basic needs met," Gaskins said in the proclamation. "The prevention of child abuse is everyone's responsibility and requires the commitment and engagement of the entire community."
The proclamation formally designated April 2026 as National Child Abuse Prevention Month in Alexandria.
Following the mayor's remarks, C. Alexandria-Bernard Thomas — a poet, teaching artist, orator and child abuse prevention advocate based in the Washington and Northern Virginia area — delivered an original poem titled "What the Wild Reminds Us" before presenting a recognition award to the Center for Alexandria's Children on behalf of Alexandria Celebrates Women.
"It is a very disheartening reality that we live in when we know children are being harmed," Thomas said. "It is my dream that child abuse becomes something of the past. But until then, us warriors will continue fighting for every child and every family."
Thomas recognized the center's staff by name, including Executive Director Terri Cheshire, Operations Manager Fiona Kunkel Loughlin, Child Advocacy Center Program Coordinator Olivia Weinel, Community Engagement Specialist Mari Fay and Learn and Play group facilitators Aida Raygada, Edith Roscoe Bates and Nina Lawrence.
"Because of them, children are safer, families are supported and this community is stronger," Thomas said.
After the formal program, attendees gathered to plant pinwheels across the park grounds. The pinwheel is the nationally recognized symbol of child abuse prevention, chosen for its association with the joy and freedom of childhood.
"It's our hope that every single person who walks past this park, everyone who takes pictures of the pinwheel garden, is reminded that that type of childhood is possible for all young people in our city," Gaskins said.
Alexandria Celebrates Women is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a dual mission: raising funds for the Alexandria Domestic Violence Safehouse and honoring the accomplishments of Alexandria women past, present and future. The event was free and open to the public.
