Childhelp Eases Pain of Neglected, Abused Kids

What some children in this county have to endure is brutally unfair. We receive in our office the monthly reports of the county’s Child Abuse Registry. I have to confess I stopped reading them. It’s too depressing to look at the numbers.

The latest report: 1,000-plus complaints to the Registry of physical abuse of children, nearly 800 reports of children being sexually abused, and an even higher number of those just being neglected. Most of these children--nearly 30%--are 4 to 7 years old, an age when a child is totally dependent on a parent for care, and has no choice but to commit his or her full trust to the parent.

The mistake may be in thinking of these parents as evil. Patti Edwards of Corona del Mar, president of the Orange County chapter of Childhelp USA, told me: “So many calls to our hotline are from women who say they are just stressed out, and they fear they will soon be taking it out on their children. These are women looking for help from someone.”

It’s a blessing for this county that there are people like Edwards and her colleagues stepping forward, who don’t stop looking at the numbers just because they are depressing.

Childhelp USA is a national, nonprofit group founded in 1959 by two former Hollywood actresses, Sara O’Meara Sigholtz and Yvonne Fedderson. You might not recognize the names, but there’s a good chance you’ve seen them. They used to play occasional girlfriends to Dave and Ricky Nelson on the old “Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett” TV show.

They started off helping orphans they saw on a trip to Asia and expanded the program to help children in the U.S.

Money raised by Childhelp USA here in Orange County--about $500,000 a year--goes toward the organization’s long-term care home for 80 youngsters in Beaumont (Riverside County), its two small group homes here, and its various programs for helping parents. Childhelp USA is big on reuniting children with parents, after the adults have learned a little better about how to take care of them.

Edwards--her family runs the Edwards Theater chain--has been with Childhelp USA about 10 years, the last two as president.

“I’m one of the fortunate ones who has the time to donate,” she said. “Raising money is something I can do, and it’s very needed.”

The local chapter puts on special luncheons or dinners each year to raise funds and also operates an annual golf tournament, hosted by former Los Angeles Ram star and longtime sportscaster Merlin Olsen. Like so many others in the group, Edwards heard about it through friends, then couldn’t stay away once she saw how serious the problem of child abuse was right here in Orange County.

“For many of us, we just couldn’t stand around and be an observer,” she said. “We had to get involved.”

Beth Bidna of Irvine joined almost as soon as she moved here five years ago.

“I went to the Childhelp home in Beaumont and I just cried the whole day,” she said. “It was just such an incredible place, with horses and a chapel and great therapy programs for the children. I just fell in love with it.”

Fair Exchange: There’s an important--and exciting--day coming up for my son: back-to-school shopping. At 13, he loves it. My daughter is 4, and I can hardly wait for the fun we’ll have when she prepares for kindergarten: Getting that perfect lunch box, the right notebook and crayons.

Think of the fun kids miss, says Dede Ginter, if their parents have no money for back-to-school shopping. She represents the Exchange Club Child Abuse Prevention Center based in Costa Mesa. And each year it does the back-to-school shopping for hundreds of abused Orange County youngsters who generally come from low-income families. It’s looking for help: donations of new notebooks, pens, pencils, dictionaries, construction paper, anything a youngster might need to start the school year off right. If you would like to buy such items for these young people, you can get a list of drop-off points by calling the Exchange Club at (714) 722-1107.

Wayne’s World: When Harris pollsters last year asked Americans for their favorite movie star, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington and Kevin Costner (in that order) had to step aside for someone who had been dead for 16 years: John Wayne, actor, sailor, Republican conservative and Newport Beach’s most famous on-the-waterfront resident. Garry Wills, pundit of the American scene, recalls that Harris poll in a lengthy piece about John Wayne in this week’s New Yorker magazine.

“When Wayne was called the American, it was a statement of what his fans wanted America to be,” Wills writes in the magazine. “He stood for an America that people felt was disappearing or had disappeared. . . . As a figure in the American imagination, he is closer to Kit Carson than to his fellow-actors.”

Cancer Alert: Prostate cancer isn’t something that men talk about freely. But this year, says the American Cancer Society, more than 24,000 California men will develop prostate cancer--and more than 3,000 Californians will die from it.

The American Cancer Society is sponsoring an all-day forum on the subject today (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.) at the Sequoia Conference Center in Buena Park. The $15 fee includes lunch and parking, plus workshops put on by experts in the field.

Wrap-Up: Tonight at 6:30 Childhelp USA holds one of its major fund-raising events, the annual Ferragosto, a traditional Italian Midsummer Festival at the Tutto Mare Ristorante at Fashion Island. The event, described as “outdoor casual,” is not an invitation-only affair. Nearly 500 people are expected, but many of the tickets ($55) are sold at the door. Pam Arnett, Childhelp USA coordinator for the dinner event encourages you to stop by: “It’s a very, very fun evening for a great cause.”

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to [email protected]