A Night with the Stars

Emerald Coast Children’s Advocacy Center Celebrates Twenty Years

Story and photography courtesy of ECCAC

This year, the Emerald Coast Children’s Advocacy Center (ECCAC) celebrated twenty years of preventing child abuse and neglect, protecting children, and restoring the lives of impacted children in Northwest Florida. To commemorate the occasion, the nonprofit hosted a live fund-raising concert, A Night with the Stars, on Tuesday, October 27, 2020, at the Mattie Kelly Cultural Arts Village in Destin. Popular local guitarist and vocalist Nic Turner and his band, the Lucky Strike Retros, opened the evening, followed by headliner Tyron “Gretsch” Lyles and the Modern Eldorados from Mobile, Alabama. The Modern Eldorados are known for their crowd-pleasing fusion of traditional rockabilly, honky-tonk, and country music.

This socially distanced live concert followed on the heels of ECCAC’s recent focus on National Domestic Violence Awareness Month for October. Throughout the month, the nonprofit emphasized the prevention of domestic abuse while also helping the children and families they serve year-round.

Prevention is the key to ending domestic violence. Approximately 1,100 cases of child sexual and physical abuse are reported annually in Northwest Florida’s Okaloosa and Walton Counties—an average of three per day. Despite those big numbers, the needs of nearly two-thirds of the actual child victims go unmet due to a lack of reporting to authorities. It is estimated that for every one child ECCAC helps, there are two more children in need.

Jasie Landeros heads up the prevention department as ECCAC’s outreach program manager. “October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month,” she says. “Often, the violence occurs between adults; however, the effects of domestic violence can be felt and seen through children as well.”

Children exposed to violence in the home are fifteen times more likely to be physically or sexually assaulted than the national average. It is also a fact that children who witness domestic violence or intimate partner violence are at a greater risk of “repeating the cycle” when they are adults, whether by entering abusive relationships or becoming the abuser.

Landeros adds, “Domestic violence awareness is even more important in these pandemic times. That is why we at ECCAC feel it is critical to create awareness with our prevention programs. We will be providing additional data and information via our website and social media.”

Funds raised at A Night with the Stars and all other monies donated to ECCAC throughout the year aid the organization’s centers in Niceville and DeFuniak Springs. They have provided over 150,000 services at no cost to more than fourteen thousand children experiencing abuse, abandonment, or neglect. Services include mental health therapy, crisis intervention, referrals to other community providers, interviews, and medical exams.

Other recent community events benefiting ECCAC include a vintner dinner hosted by Mike and Valerie Thompson and Mark and Kim Fressell, where twenty couples enjoyed a fine meal at Crust Artisan Bakery and Italian Restaurant paired with wines from Thompson 31Fifty Wine based in Healdsburg, California. Jackson White, owner of Mills Heating & Air, also donated twenty thousand dollars in October to help ECCAC aid area children. With donations having dropped this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these generous efforts are especially appreciated.

Please consider helping this incredible organization and others like it as they fight domestic violence and more, helping children be seen and heard and creating a better future for our community.

For further information, visit ECCAC.org, or email or call Jasie Landeros at Jasie@eccac.org, (850) 833-9237, ext. 267. If abuse is suspected, call the anonymous Florida Abuse Hotline at (1-800) 96-ABUSE.