92.9 WEZQ Village Child Project with Hands of Hope
Our Story
The 92.9 WEZQ Village Child Project with Hands of Hope to benefit neglected, abused and
sexually assaulted children primarily in state care and living in group homes has been created to fill a need for therapeutic
recreation programs.
During the Holiday season in 2007 92.9 WEZQ offered to help Hands of Hope get sponsors
for Holiday gifts for our neighbors in need. Along with hundreds of area families in need Hands of Hope holiday assistance
also extended to state children living in group homes. It was at that point that 92.9 WEZQ program director Dorian Daniels
became aware that outside of the basics for group home children who are wards of the state there was and is little to no funding
available to help with other beneficial programs. Both Kathy from Hands of Hope and 92.9 WEZQ decided at that point that we
wanted to do more. And based on the African Proverb “It takes a whole village to raise a child” The 92.9 WEZQ
Village Child Project with hand of Hope was born. Both groups feel at this crucial time in each of these children’s
lives we have the opportunity if not responsibility to help them through their crisis. The pay off being two fold. First and
most important is to restore self-esteem, trust and a sense of a future with choices to each child. Second it is my belief
that left unaided by good people who care the prospects for them to break free from their roots and become a beneficial addition
to our communities is bleak. As a community I believe that we will be dealing with the effects of their abuse at some point
why not now when we have the chance to lift them up instead of lock them up.
Originally Hands of Hope and 92.9 WEZQ had varying ideas of the best way to assist when
we met Chris Kerr, a clinician and creator of Healthy Seeds. Healthy Seeds is a summer program that through therapeutic
recreation gives sexually abused children in group homes all the benefits and hopes we had dreamed of with goal oriented activities.
From that point we planned a fundraiser to help put abused and neglected children through
this program and similar ones in the state. Two things happened then. One, Wal-Mart got on board to help with a venue for
our fundraiser. They also offered grants and more locations to help the project. We were thrilled. More support
means more group homes could be helped. The second thing though, is that due to a lack of funding may group homes have no
such programs in place to assist their children. The Village Child Project then expanded its goals to help all group
homes Augusta north to have therapeutic recreation programs. The ultimate goal of this new project is to rehabilitate abused
and neglected children, primarily who are wards of the state, living in group home facilities. Restoring in them self-esteem,
trust and a childhood more recognizable as satisfactory. As the project grows we hope to include birthday celebrations and
other enrichment activities.
The 92.9 WEZQ Village Child Project with Hands of Hope will be having a fundraiser beginning
on Friday May 2nd and running through Sunday May 4th. 92.9 WEZQ Dorian Daniels will be camping
out Brewer Wal-Mart during that time to raise money and awareness. Along with Brewer there will also be tables at Rockland,
Bangor, Lincoln, Presque Isle, Ellsworth, Houlton, Waterville, Palmyra, Skowhegan, and Calais Wal-Marts looking for support
and donations from those communities. Wal-Mart will also be presenting a grant check to help and 92.9 WEZQ will be attempting
to garner a matching contribution from the community or ‘village” to help raise up and restore these children’s
lives and futures.
