July 2020 Issue

The Child Advocacy Center of Aiken County (CAC), located at 4231 Trolley Line Road in Aiken, coordinates investigations, treatment, and prosecution of the most serious cases of child abuse in Aiken and its surrounding counties. The building, staff, and volunteers provide a safe, nurturing, healing, child-friendly environment at no cost to the families who need it. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the CAC also provides training, education and community outreach to break the cycle of abuse. For more information, visit ChildAdvocacyAiken.org. I was asked to speak at a volunteer recruitment tea for the Child Advocacy Center last fall. Unfortunately, I personally know individuals who have been summoned to the center for the

I suspect that doing the right thing is, in the end, simply cultivating an appropriate and deliberate respect for all the beautiful variations and possibilities of one another. I always thought they were a gift from my mother. The wild and brilliant red rose vines burst into my yard, along the front of the house, just beneath my bedroom windows, the very first spring following my mother’s death. They have been bringing me delight and insight rather consistently ever since. It’s been almost a decade now. And I’ve always refrained from interfering with their spontaneity, their free-form loveliness, even their integration with the window shutters and roof line and other

I am 18 years old now, I’m a legal adult, and I am a high school graduate. The road to adulthood was rocky but I made it, and now, well, now I’m more confused about life than I was when I was a “kid.” I feel like I’m at a fork in the road with about a million different paths, and I know that’s the exciting part of life. I’m told that these are supposed to be the best years of my life and I finally get to figure out what I want to do and be an adult, but ironically I don’t feel much different than when I was

“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” Franz Kafka July is The Youth Issue. Nothing is more youthful than summer. Kids are out of school and can be found all over town, playing in parks, hanging out by the pool, and making new friends at summer camps. The days are long and the sunsets seem to go on forever. Birds sing all day and fireflies grace the evenings. There is magic at play. Families spend more time together and schedules are a little more relaxed. The presence of children and their playfulness adds fun to