May 2022

TO ALL THE MOMS, MOMS TO BE & MENTOR MOMS

Happy Mothers Day to ALL the MOMS who make a difference every day in the lives of their children or other children who depend on their love and guidance. Each and everyone of you are appreciated more than you know, and for those of you that are not told enough, YOU are special and YOU are appreciated.

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SATURDAY, APRIL 23RD 2022
WAS OUR FIRST FASHION SHOW AND
IT WAS AWESOME!

Our Angel Brunch Bunch event was our first fashion show event and it was a huge hit with the ladies. Special thanks to the following individuals who made our event a huge success:

• Sherri Talcott, owner of JoJo’s Boutique, St Pete Beach for not only providing beautiful clothes, but all she did before and after our event with her generous giving.
• Our beautiful models who walked the runway in beautiful outfits strutting their stuff.
• TEAM AWESOME for putting this event together so it ran flawlessly.
• Nicole Spinelli, our VP, who was also our MC for the event. Nicole did a wonderful job of entertaining our guests while making them aware of what the Angels do and the impact we have in our community on the children and families we advocate for.
• A special thank you our entertainer, Fiona Frensche who not only added jazz and fun to our event, but made it a gift to the Angels. Thank you so much Fiona!

The clothes were amazing and the entertainment could not have been better. It was an afternoon of fun, door prizes, raffle items and let’s not forget those unlimited Mimosas. They were definitely a hit!

We are very happy to announce that it was such a BIG hit with the ladies that they all said that they hoped the Angels would do it again next year! Mark your calendars ladies, your wish is our command! We are on the calendar at SPYC for March 25th, 2023. For those of you that were unable to attend, you missed a great time and we don’t want you to miss another one. So get out your phones and set the date on your calendar…

Please visit our website and click on the Angel Brunch Bunch Fashion Show button that says “A Look Back“.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS LADIES, YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS THE FUN!
MARCH 25TH 2023
ST PETE YACHT CLUB
11:00 AM TO 2:00 PM

Thank YOU St Pete Fools Charity for choosing Angels Against Abuse as one of the charities for the St Pete Fools Golf Tournament that was held last Sunday, May 2nd 2022. It was so much fun and there were so many generous hearts. Thank you Tony Mangiafco and your wonderful Board Members and volunteers for this wonderful event.

ANOTHER BIG EVENT JUST AROUND THE CORNER
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND – THE CHILD ADVOCACY EXPO

AUGUST 4TH IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER
GET YOUR REGISTRATION FORMS IN
THE CHILD ADVOCACY EXPO IS BACK
THURSDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2022
9:00 AM TO 1:00 PM

The Angels are very excited to bring back our famous Child Advocacy Expo. With some new community partners, new faces, previous agencies, some new resources, and a new Lead Agency, Family Support Services of North Florida, we felt it was perfect timing to host our 11th Annual Child Advocacy Expo to give everyone an opportunity to network with one another and share all the resources in our community. We are very excited to have Secretary Shevaun Harris as our Guest Speaker to talk about moving forward and finding solutions to make more of a difference in the lives of the children we advocate for. Please click on the below buttons for all the details. Please make sure you complete your registration form and email [email protected] so we can get you added to our Expo Mailing List. Please share this information with other agencies you work with that may not know about the Expo so we can get everyone to participate. KNOWLEDGE is POWER and the more we know, the more we can make a difference.

The Angels are happy to share any news with our community partners. If you have some great news to share or an event coming up that you would like to add to our newsletter, we are happy to help. We want to know what is going on in our community so share your news with us! We are all in this together!

CONGRATULATIONS GLORIA LAWSON

Gloria Lawson has been selected as a member of the event planning committee for the first ever Buccaneers’ Mike Evans Family Foundation Gala. She is even more excited to be attending this event which raises funds to serve our community’s most vulnerable youth. It is her hope that the Foundation will begin supporting some of our local charities, like Angels and Fostering Hope, as they learn more about our work.

I have attached an invite in hopes of seeing some Angels at the event.

Gloria West Lawson
Executive Director
Fostering Hope Florida, Inc.
www.fosteringhopeflorida.org

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The Angels want to congratulate all of our Pre-K little ones, elementary, middle and senior high school children who made it through another year. Congratulations to those of you graduating from College. Good luck to each and every one of you who managed another year in spite of the challenges you may have faced with the pandemic or any other challenges that you had to overcome. For those of you that are off to college, enjoy your higher education and enjoy the road that lies ahead of you. The Angels are so proud of all of your achievement. Our Hats are off to YOU! Make the world proud!

On a personal note, my grandson, Riley, graduated from FSU on Friday, April 29th 2022 and we are so proud of him! CONGRATS RILEY! Good Job!

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MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR ANOTHER
MAD HATTER TEA PARTY!
JULY 32ST, 2023
MORNING TEA 11 AM TO 1 PM
AFTERNOON TEA 2 PM TO 4 PM

Once again the Sunshine City Kiwanis Club will be hosting another fantastic MAD HATTER TEA PARTY! On behalf of the Angels, thank you Allen Yergovich and Elizabeth Wulff for keeping our legacy alive… They need volunteers. Please contact Elizabeth Wulff at: [email protected]

READ ALL ABOUT IT, CLICK BELOW!

FRIENDS OF THE CHILDREN, TAMPA BAY

A Message from:
Byron B Pressley,
Sr., Program Director
Friends of the Children Tampa Bay Chapter

Adam’s stability had consistently been an issue for the past two years. Adam and his mother had moved about 4 to 5 time including one placement being in a homeless shelter and the lack of resources and food. These numerous moves resulted in youth also switching school 3 times. During the school changes youth had struggled behaviorally and academically, but as the Friend continued to consistently work with youth academically on outings as well as encourage him in school, Friend noticed signs of improvement as time went on, specifically in reading and especially since the youth now had a laptop that was given by the Angels. Dating back to when Friend first took on the role of being youth’s mentor seven years ago, Friend had never seen youth achieve honor roll on a report card or progress report. Through consistency, hard work, devising plans for youth to work his reading when Friend was not present and remaining consistent with school visits and outings, academically youth had made drastic progress in his current school. With youth’s efforts, he fell just short of honor roll on his last report card by one grade, but earned honor roll on his most recent progress report and has continued to do very well. Thanks to the support of the Angels and even Kind Mouse the youth and the youth’s family is doing extremely well.

CPI Miller’s current role is to assist primary CPI’s monitoring in-home safety plans. These plans are where a CPI identifies child safety concerns ranging from a parent having substance abuse issues to ongoing domestic violence concerns, but the concerns do not rise to the level of the children needing to be removed from the home.

In April, 2021 a position was created where a full-time certified CPI would make an additional visit one time per week to check on the family, as well as have contact with the Safety Monitor to see how things are going.

Over the past nine months CPI Miller has discovered countless concerns that we would have never been aware of if not for this safety plan. This program was recognized recently as a good support for CPI’s and representatives from the Department of Children and Families (DCF) and they are planning on taking this idea back to their area to possibly implement.

The Angels sponsored an Ice Cream Social Sponsored on April 12, 2022. This was a great way to thank our staff for all of the hard work they do each and every day. The Angels are a huge resource not only to our community kids and our kids in the system of care, but they go above and beyond in also supporting our frontline workers, who often feel overwhelmed and exhausted from the daily case work. The Angels sponsored the purchase of the ice cream and toppings to provide our CPI staff. We were able to take a few minutes out of the day to sit with a coworker and enjoy some ice cream.

OUR OPPORTUNITY OUTREACH PROGRAM IS A HUGE SUCCESS.

Here is just one of the many success stories we hear about with the impact we have in the children’s lives we assist throughout the year.

Juan and his 5 siblings came into care due to every form of neglect imaginable. They were placed into 3 different homes. Only 3 reside together and the other 3 were separated. They had not been able to have an in person sibling visit since coming into care over a year ago due to the distance and lack of transportation. Being able to get all 6 children together made a huge difference for these children. Their faces lit up like I have never seen before when they saw each other. They all doted about how much the other had grown and how much they looked alike. The younger children vied for the oldest attention as he was essentially the father to them their whole lives. It was just like they had never left each other. During the visit they all took care of each other. The kids were so excited as they had never been to the Aquarium before including the now 18 year old. This was really a once in a lifetime thing for him

Thank you again for all that you have been doing to support our kids! We are so grateful for the support and generosity of you and the entire Angels board.

Erin Authier
Executive Director
Hero to a Child

This month’s success story comes from one of our “littles” from Campbell Park Elementary School. Gavin started with the Baby CAT Program in November of 2021. Gavin was referred by the school due to trouble staying on task, aggressive tantrums, and what appeared to be some strong “sensory issues”. In April of 2022 the school and his mom began reporting that Gavin’s tantrums were becoming worse, and that Gavin had begun eloping from the classroom and getting more aggressive in school. Mom reported that the staff at Campbell Park Elementary required Gavin be seen by a psychiatrist, and he could not return to school until he had been seen by a psychiatrist and assessed for medications.
The clinical consultant and Baby CAT team worked with Gavin on strategies to managing his emotions. The team worked quickly to get Gavin scheduled with the psychiatrist to see if medication would be beneficial to him. Today, the team is proud to say that Gavin had his psychiatric evaluation and the school reported that Gavin is doing much better in school and his home environment. He is less aggressive, and he has been completing his assignments and not running away. Gavin said in his own words “I have more focus and I make better choice” and he is very happy about this. The Baby CAT team is incredibly happy for Gavin. He is such an amazing child, who is very bright and full of life dreams. He wants to someday be an entomologist who is an expert in the branch of zoology.

DATE CHANGE FOR THE
ANNUAL ANGEL AWARENESS EVENT
HALLOWEEN EXTRAVAGANZA
OCTOBER 21st, vs OCTOBER 28th, 2022, ST PETE YACHT CLUB
6:00 PM – 11:00 PM

OUR ANNUAL GALA
A CLASSY HALLOWEEN EXTRAVAGANZA
SPARKLE WITH THE GLITTER QUEENS

Angels will be inducting the The St Pete Glitter Queens into our Archangel Hall of Fame at our 2022 annual event. Break out your tiaras Queens, it is going to be a night to remember. We will have great music, food, entertainment, but most of all our guests will still know why the Angels do what they do in our community. Thanks to this amazing group of women, they chose Angels Against Abuse as their charity of choice in 2015 and helped us make a difference in the lives of the children and families we advocate for 24/7.

We have modified the attire by popular demand! We are asking that our guests wear something dressy Black and jazz it up with ORANGE, PURPLE, GREEN or any other Halloween colors. We want it to be a classy event, Angel style!

What would happen if a child doesn’t get food? A good question. Growing children need the nutrients in food to grow strong and healthy. Plus, food helps them focus better and be in a good mood for school or other activities. Without food, the child can’t get those important vitamins and nutrients needed to be a good student, in a good mood and to be alert. When a child is hungry, they will think about food, and when they can’t have said food, they start to become unfocused, grumpy and unmotivated.

Jingles, Age 15 , Kind Mouse Intern and Mouse Vision , Been at Kind Mouse for 8 years. 04/27/22

The Kind Mouse has filled over 681,000 tummies. Thank you Gina for your hard work and all your mice helpers.

Happy Birthday Kind Mouse! You have touched so many children’s lives in the past 10 years.

YOU ARE A HERO!

Angel Monthly Meeting Schedule
2022

May 10th 2022 – 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM
Angel Meeting (2nd Tuesday)
Pasadena Community Church
221 70th Street South
St Petersburg, FL

Angel Monthly Meeting Schedule
Summer Break June

August 4th 2022 – 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Child Advocacy
Pinellas Realtor Organization
4590 Ulmerton Road
Clearwater, FL 33762

August 9th 2022 – 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM
Angel Meeting (2nd Tuesday)
Pasadena Community Church
221 70th Street South
St Petersburg, FL

September 13th 2022 – 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM
Angel Meeting (2nd Tuesday)
Pasadena Community Church
221 70th Street South
St Petersburg, FL

Angels Against Abuse Gives HOPE,
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow….

WE NEED YOUR VOTE TO STAY ON TOP.

THANK YOU ANGELS FOR TAKING THE TIME TO WRITE A REVIEW!

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT SO PLEASE TAKE A FEW MINUTES AND LET EVERYONE KNOW HOW WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE.

YOUR WORDS SPEAK VOLUMES IN THE COMMUNITY!

PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!

We are looking for volunteers for all of our upcoming events. Please contact Sandy Kearney by clicking on the above link and let us know which of our upcoming events you are available to help volunteer. Please remember that all of these events benefit the Angels and your support will make a difference. Thank you for your support!