In preparation for The Children’s March which will occur in Salt Lake City, Utah on October 5, 2019, Protect Every Child would like to share an update on the Climb A Mountain Save A Child portion of our activism for this year.

Many of our supporters have already participated in this effort. They have done a fantastic job raising public awareness of the epidemic of child abuse. It is our hope that through this awareness, more and more people will join us in calling for protection measures to be put in place in all child-serving institutions. These wonderful people have created or purchased flags, planned climbs, scaled obstacles and unfurled their banners. I wish to personally thank every one of them for the caring and courage they each so freely gave to our cause.

I don’t want the world to forget what they have done. At protecteverychild.com we now have a growing series of posts connected to the page called Banners Unfurled. Any interested persons can go there to see the pictures and read the messages that our intrepid supporters have submitted to me and to PEC. With the march being only 24 days away, I would like that day to dawn BRIGHTLY because it has been preceded by the colors of a three-week Fall Color Tour of our Protect Every Child banners.

Therefore:

I would like to invite anyone who hasn’t yet climbed a mountain to save a child to make the attempt now. You can make your own flags, or buy them from Protect Every Child. Your banner can be as simple as a hand-lettered posterboard, or a picture drawn by a child with our slogan on it . We’ll take it! We know that many of you would like to do more, but that distance, health, finances or the timing have simply made it too busy to climb this summer. Many have told me these issues are also preventing them from being able to join in our projected 5,000 member Children’s March on October 5th. We honor your good hearts. We thank you for your belief and encouragement.

So that you may feel at one with us, when we march in Salt Lake, we invite as many of you as possible, across this nation and across the world, to let your local and online participation over the next three weeks be your contribution to the children and to this cause on their behalf.

Second, I want to stress that for a child, mountains come in many forms. I encourage supporters to continue to hike their hills and scale their mountains. However, I would also like to invite you to choose to take your stand in front of any child-serving institution in your community.  For a child who is vulnerable, endangered or being abused, their mountain may very well be an institution. On the other hand, their way over and out of their mountains may be the help that they find because of a child-serving institution. So stand in front of those homes, those churches, those schools and day care centers, those public libraries and public recreation centers, those runaway and homeless youth services. Stand in front of those places which society roars out, “This institution should be a safe place for kids!” If the place you are thinking of serves children, it qualifies.

Third, I invite PEC supporters to take pictures and video at that chosen place and then share it. Email it. Post it on your social networks and in social media. Hashtag #ProtectEveryChild. Hashtag #FallColorTour. You can even share your story with us, to whatever degree you feel comfortable, by emailing it to liberty-sam@msn.com . With your written permission, my small team of volunteers and I will help everyone know how beautifully and well you have joined in on the cause to Protect Every Child.

Fourth, I invite past, present and future Climber-Unfurlers to INVITE A FRIEND to participate in the Climb A Mountain And Save A Child campaign during this three-week Fall Color Tour leading up to The Children’s March. Plan your event and take them with you. If they live too far away plan a date to climb together or simply invite to tell them about the cause of protecting children. We want to spread the word. Despite being eight months into our effort and less than a month away from the March, there are still too many people who don’t know about Protect Every Child.

May those practices and policies which have caused too many children’s hearts to fall… be ended. May the colors of autumn, combined with the hopeful colors of our banners, remind the children that things can and will change. As sure as autumn follows summer, a harvest of hope will come. With every color of the rainbow, that hope will look forth on that October morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun and terrible as an army with banners. It will rise, 5,000 people strong, through the streets of Salt Lake City… and shine.

You can register for the march HERE.