Child Advocates of Fort Bend staff and guests celebrated the agency’s 20th anniversary on Wednesday evening with an open house. Ruthanne Mefford, Child Advocates of Fort Bend’s Executive Director, thanked all of the guests and reminded everyone that “without the involvement of everyone in the room, the vision to start the first and only program for abused and neglected children in Fort Bend County would never have come to fruition. Formed in 1991 with a volunteer Executive Director and one foster child, the agency now has 24 full-time staff members, 800 trained volunteers and served 1,391 children last year.”
Texas State Representative John Zerwas was presented with a “Big Voice For Little Texans” award during the short ceremony. The award is reserved for legislators who exhibited leadership during the legislative session in making foster children a priority.
“In 1991, Suzanne Kern and Judge Stansbury had the vision to build a community of volunteers who would be specially trained to advocate for children in the foster care system who had suffered the tragedy of abuse and neglect, these volunteers would provide a voice for the children so they didn’t fall through the cracks of the legal system. I doubt they ever imagined that we would grow from a rented office space in a strip mall to a building where we could office side by side with our partners to better help children and truly become a “full service”, “one stop shop” for child victims and their families,” stated Mefford.