Community Counseling Center to host superhero-themed benefit Thursday

Community Counseling Center will host its second annual superheroes-themed Have a Heart for Kids Fundraiser on Thursday to benefit its specialized children’s programs.

“February is kind of a time when the events have wound down from all of the holidays,” Mary Burton, executive director of Community Counseling Center foundation, said by phone Tuesday. “So why not talk about having a heart for children?”

The idea of superheroes derived from Burton and her team realizing it would be fun for the children benefiting from the center’s Cottonwood Residential Treatment Facility, she said.

Each year, nearly 2,500 children with chronic and persistent mental health disorders benefit from the event and programs offered, Burton said.

And some of those children will be in attendance Thursday, masquerading as his or her favorite superhero, as well as some other superheroes.

“Scott Gibbins from SoutheastHEALTH was Superman last year, and I anticipate him being a super Superman this year,” Burton said. “We will have Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, and Wonder Woman will be there also.”

Attendees may dress as their favorite superhero if they so choose, but the real superheroes are the ones who are helping to support the work of Cottonwood Residential Treatment Center and the children’s services offered through Community Counseling Center, Burton said.

“This is whom it’s really benefiting,” she said, “and this is who it’s all about,” explaining the facility assists children from all over the State of Missouri.

Burton said $30,000 was raised at the event last year and hopes to reach between $35,000 and $40,000 this year.

Last year, the event also attracted 300 attendees. This year she expects more than 350.

“We have some people that have gone through the program come in to talk about the services they received,” Burton said. “Last year, we had an individual who was a resident of Cottonwood and talked about how he, as an adult, can reflect back and see how that changed his life.”

This year, similar speakers will be present, she said.

The event is about the children, Burton stressed, but it also serves to educate the community about the work accomplished through the facility’s children’s services.

Through similar events and with the support of “the superheroes out there,” she said, the organization has been able to implement day treatment in all of the schools within its five-county service area.

CCC counselors have boots on the ground within those schools, Burton said, to assist with issues children experience on a day-to-day basis.

“The kids that are enrolled in our program go year round with that,” she said. “So when school’s over, we don’t abandon them; we still are there.”

Those students receive a half-day of clinical treatments and a half-day of school, Burton said.

The need for in-school counseling has grown to an overwhelming extent, she said, so the facility must now place crisis counselors within schools.

“So these are the types of events that will support having those crisis teams and the counselors in our facilities to help the kids that so desperately need the help,” Burton said.

And the time of the event is intentionally not during the “typical evening hours” for a benefit, she explained.

Burton said, “The people that are working have to take a lunch, and why not come out and have lunch with us so that they can do good as well as nourish their bodies?”

The event will be at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at the Drury Plaza Conference Center in Cape Girardeau. Tickets are $25. For more information, call (573) 332-2795.

jhartwig@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3632