In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, which is in October, the Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence is hosting a kickball tournament Nov. 6.
Domestic violence is a pattern of behaviors used by one person to have power and control over a current or previous intimate partner. It can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological. This includes anything to intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure or wound a partner.
"Our hope is to raise funds for our organization," Executive Director Tyler Rieke said, "but also just to get the community out mingling together and just the opportunity to education people on domestic violence, educate them on the services we provide at CARDV and how to access those services. We thought a kickball tournament would be fun and different. No one else was doing one in this area that we knew about, so we thought it would be something kind of unique to get people out to the park and could appeal to a large group of folks."
CARDV is designed to advocate for and provide support to individuals in Callaway County who have been affected by domestic violence or sexual assault. It strives to empower individuals to make choices that will promote their personal safety, well-being and self-sufficiency.
It offers several services such as emotional support and safety planning, crisis intervention, legal advocacy, medical advocacy, emergency temporary shelter, counseling, support groups, information and referrals and outreach. It's services are available to all of Callaway County and are free and confidential for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
CARDV is also part of the Every Blue Jay grant at Westminster where it provides students with a confidential third party to talk with.
"Anything that we can do to help survivor of domestic violence heal and move forward really is what we want to be a part of," Rieke said. "We do also provide some financial assistance as well to help as they move toward a violence-free life."
Looking back at 2020, they served 438 individuals of which 325 were adults and 113 were children; they received 2670 hotline calls and provided $44,918 in financial assistance to individuals.
The kickball tournament will help raise funds so the organization can continue helping those who need their help.
There will be food trucks, children's activities, several raffles and some good, old-fashioned kickball.
"Our hope is that not only the teams will come out but also just the community who want to come and cheer on the teams and participate in the raffles, have some food and just kind of hang out for the day," Rieke said. "It's a great cause and a lot of fun. We hope people bring their friends and families. And make sure to watch our Facebook page for updates on raffles and things like that."
For more information or to register a team, visit www. callawaycardv.org/kickball or visit the Facebook event page at bit.ly/3BQcjpe.