The community is invited to celebrate happy, healthy childhoods by helping to plant a pinwheel garden Friday, the start of Child Abuse Prevention Month in North Carolina.
At 10 a.m., more than 100 colorful pinwheels will be placed in planters and around the flagpole in front of the Rowan County Department of Social Services building, 1813 East Innes St. in Salisbury.
ěPrevent Child Abuse America and its state chapters have adopted the pinwheel as the symbol for happy, healthy childhoods,î wrote Social Services Director Sandra Wilkes in an e-mail to the Post. ěCommunities across North Carolina will plant pinwheel gardens on April 1, as a reminder that children deserve happy childhoods and that child abuse and neglect will not be tolerated.î
Before planting the pinwheel garden, members of the Board of Social Services will speak and a childrenís choir from Partners in Learning Day Care will sing. The garden will be on display throughout April.
ěWe will ask some of the participants to take one of the pinwheels with them to their business or home and plant it,î said Tom Brewer, program administrator for childrenís services, at this monthís Board of Social Services meeting. ěThat way, the message will not be just to the Department of Social Services but will be scattered throughout the community.î