 According to childhelp.org the United States has one of the worst records among industrialized nations losing on average between four and seven children every day to child abuse and neglect. Judy's Place for Kids held a telethon at the Mountain Art Center to raise funds for abused children in multiple counties around eastern Kentucky. I met with Laura Kretzer who is the executive director of Judy's Place for Kids to find out how much was raised and how these funds will help abuse children in our region. We had a wonderful event on Wednesday night at the Mountain Arts Center that offered children telethon and it was a great time to have some entertainment. We had Coldtown Dixie. We had William Nelson. We had Nick Jamerson. All donated their time and talents and then we had lots of community partners talk about the work of Judy's Place for Kids and so at the end of the night we were just over 22,000 dollars in donations which was wonderful and then we've had a few donations come in since then and so we are at about 24,500 so we just need a few more donations to meet that 25,000 dollar goal. The money really goes to make sure that children in our area have access to everything that they need to heal from abuse and so part of that is to have expert staff who are well trained and know what to do so we have forensic interviewers, we have victim advocates, we have medical providers and so it helps make sure that we have all of those services at two different locations Pikeful and Prestonsburg. The other thing that the funds do are really make sure that we can grow our CASA of Eastern Kentucky program and that stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates. So Court Appointed Special Advocates are volunteers who get to know all about a child who's in family court due to abuse or neglect so it takes a lot to be able to promote that program in the community and then to have well trained staff members who support those volunteers who train those volunteers, supervise them, meet with them on a regular basis and then go out and find more volunteers. Some of the funds do help caregivers bring their children to Judy's Place with transportation costs and help out with emergency needs like that. We need donations all year round and so we've tried to make it really easy that on our website at judysplace.org you can even set up just a monthly donation and so even $25 a month, $10 a month makes a huge difference over a year's time. I would encourage if anyone really has a heart to care about abused children and wants to get involved more just to call us and talk with us about what it really means to be a COSF volunteer.