Pitching In for Abused Children

	For the children New Mexico Friends of Foster Children accepts checks, credit cards, PayPal: P.O. Box 30228, Albuquerque, NM 87190; www.nmffc.org, Facebook or 505-480-0482. Donations are tax deductible. Foster parents and advocates can also apply for items for their foster children.

The contents of that envelope are unknown, but what is of more interest is the “others,” the little girls who presumably played once with the pink bike and chair, the ones Albuquerque police say were made to live naked, neglected and beaten in the bathtub of that apartment.

The 5-year-old had a poorly healed broken arm, fractured ribs and a tuft of hair missing from her head when police found her, according to the criminal complaint. Her 3-year-old sister had broken ribs and ligature marks on her legs from where she had been tied up. Her head had been cut with a knife, and her skull had been so fractured that blood had seeped into her brain.

One of the girls appeared to have a broken nose; both girls were so malnourished their arms and legs were cadaverous and their bellies were distended.

They may have been too weak, too frightened to crawl out of the bathtub.

A younger child also lived in the apartment, though apparently in better conditions than those of her sisters.

Marquez-Chavez is their 19-year-old mother, a child herself when she gave birth.

She was apparently too weak, too frightened to crawl out of her relationship with boyfriend Jesus Acosta-Contreras, 28, to protect her children.

She remains in the Metropolitan Detention Center on two counts of child abuse. A felony warrant has been issued for Acosta-Contreras, whose criminal record includes two charges of drunken driving and a shoplifting charge from Coronado Center last month.

Albuquerque police administrative assistant Cathy Sanchez and Sgt. Lance Hoisington sort through donations of toys, clothing and diapers delivered to the Shawn McWethy Memorial Substation after police dispatchers sought help for two little girls found abused and starving in an apartment bathtub. Police officials say they have received so many donations, they plan to save some for other needy children. (DEAN HANSON/JOURNAL)

He is still on the run.

The details of the girls’ abuse were so disturbing that APD dispatchers, no strangers to hearing the worst people do to one another, initiated a communitywide collection of toys and clothing for the girls.

It was, they said, a way to let the girls know there is life beyond their nightmares.

A day after the drive was announced, donations – including unopened Christmas presents brought in by other children – filled two rooms of the Shawn McWethy Memorial Substation.

It was an amazing response from a community that wanted to wrap its arms around the little girls – and its hands around the necks of those who had treated them so savagely.

Police officials say they received so many donated items that they plan on saving some of them to give to other needy, abused or neglected children.

And there are plenty of them. Children are abused and neglected to varying degrees every day. This month, the state Children, Youth and Families Department projected it will have identified more than 7,200 children as victims of abuse and neglect by year’s end, an increase of 17 percent over last year.

Most of those nightmares never make the front page. That doesn’t mean those children aren’t just as deserving of our compassion and concern and collections of toys and clothing.

But I have another suggestion.

The New Mexico Friends of Foster Children has been fulfilling the needs of abused and neglected kiddos since its creation in 2003 by a group of volunteer child advocates.

The nonprofit raises funds through donations and various charitable events such as its annual golf tournament to purchase those things the state foster care system – the same system into which those three little girls have now been placed – can’t afford.

“There is so much that these kids need,” program manager Mary Ann Copas said. “Things that allow these kids to be kids.”

Things like bicycles and prom dresses, tutoring and school football uniforms.

Lately, the Friends have seen an increase in requests for laptops, netbooks and tablets so foster children can complete their school assignments.

“One girl we know of was trying to do her school paper on a cellphone until we got her a laptop,” Copas said.

The Friends helped defray the cost of sending two foster girls to a marine biology camp at Sea World in San Antonio, Texas, this year, she said. Another child who had been burned was afforded specialized lotions that Medicaid would not cover.

Other children received funding for private schools and Little League. The Friends also helped pay a portion of the costs for former Velarde foster kid Ruben Rascon to study with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow.

It helps, a little.

Certainly, teddy bears and tuition may not heal these children, including the little girls in the bathtub, but perhaps it can help nudge them closer to something more normal, to that life beyond their nightmares.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline Gutierrez Krueger at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal