By Mike Donahue
Moapa Valley Progress
Scores of people from every community in the greater Moapa Valley area turned out on Friday to enjoy the Third Annual Child Abuse and Neglect Awareness Parade and Earth Day celebration on the Moapa River Indian Reservation.
Twelve floats participated in the parade that kicked off the all-day festivities designed to bring awareness to the fight against child abuse and neglect. The tribal Administration Department’s float took first place with an imaginative display that included kids in enormous faux eggs headlined “Protect our chicks.”
“April is child abuse prevention month and we use the parade to help us remember how important it is to make children a priority in our community,” said Dawn Bruce, tribal social services director and the driving force behind the awareness campaign. “One of the best preventative measures is community involvement and absolutely everyone has been involved in the parade and Earth Day.”
One of the highlights of the festivities was a dunk tank. Competitors lined up 15 deep to throw a ball at a small target which, when hit, would drop tribal police chief Kevin Moore, or Housing Department staff members Vicki Keeney or Heather Pratt into a vat of cold water.
Sharp-eyed pitchers kept the three soaking wet.
The watermelon-eating contest was a messy riot that didn’t lack for participants. Seven-year-old Jmoni Moorehead took first in the 0 to 11 age category; Sylas Calderon-Walker, 14, was first in the 12 to 17 age group; Armon Tom, won the 18 to 50 bracket, and Robert Tom, 54, took first in the last category of 50 plus.
William Anderson, tribal chairman, praised the community-wide event.
“Everyone, from kids to elders, did a fantastic job making this a success,” Anderson said. “This was a great event not just for our community but for the surrounding communities as well. It’s good seeing everyone come out and have a good time for such a worthwhile cause.”
Twenty-six informational and swap-meet booths were set up in and around the administration building that offered a variety of different services and merchandise.
Booths included Cappalappa Family Resource Center, University of Nevada Reno Cooperative Extension, the Sierra Club and the FBI, where agents promoted victim services and an internet safety program to prevent crimes against children.
“The FBI-SOS (safe online surfing) Internet Challenge is a free, educational, online program promoting cyber citizenship,” according to Holly James, community outreach specialist for the Las Vegas FBI office. “It teaches students how to recognize and react to online dangers. The program delivers critical internet safety information in a fun, competitive format to students in third through eighth grades.”
The Summerlin Lion’s club provided a free eye screening for all participants.
In addition to the parade and dunk tank, there was a tug of war, cake sale and a chili cook-off won by Cynthia Dotson.
Earth Day culminated a week of activities sponsored by different departments that included a talent show, ping pong contest, movie night and Housing Department clean-up day.
Each day participants were given raffle tickets that were redeemed on parade day for prizes that included large trees and bushes from the Farm Department and a blue ray disc player and high definition television provided by the Tribal Council that was won by Noey Tom.
“We couldn’t have done this without all of you and the special help provided by the Tribal Council,” Bruce told the crowd.
