T E X A R K A N A M A G A Z I N E
WE STAND READY BY TERRI GRAVITT PHOTOS BY MATT CORNEL IUS
No child deserves to live in fear! Bikers Against Child Abuse, Inc. (B.A.C.A.) is a nonprofit 501-C-3, tax-exempt international organization with a chapter right here in Texarkana. The organization was founded in 1995 with one man’s desire to help just one suffering child, an eight-year-old, who was so frightened by his perpetrators that he would not leave his own home. The founder, having had kind and loving experiences with bikers during his own childhood, was moved to include this boy in his biker circle. Within a short amount of time, that boy was out of his home, riding his own bike and playing again with other children. With this knowledge and success, it was time to act and help in the effort to end child abuse around the world; thus, B.A.C.A. was born. Imagine you are a child who has been abused by people who are supposed to protect you. How do you regain that feeling of safety we all crave? That question is at the very heart of B.A.C.A. Their goal is ultimately to break the chains of child abuse so those affected by it do not grow up and bring what happened to them into their relationships. Before B.A.C.A. members are allowed to help a child, they undergo extensive background checks and training for handling sensitive situations. “Shaggy,” the President of our local Texarkana chapter, shared, “We have an MOU or a Memorandum of Understanding with the State of Texas. It is an agreement stating that every 18 months, our members will have new background checks run. Our fingerprints are even on file with the FBI.” After this process is completed, the true mission of B.A.C.A. begins. “We receive information about a ‘hero’ (a child abuse victim),”
Shaggy explained, “and we set up a visit. This visit includes about four or five people. We go and meet the child. We tell them about what B.A.C.A. does and how we would like to help them by standing with them. We advise them that this is a big decision and that with any big decision, they need to think on it for at least 24 to 48 hours. After they have thought about it, if they decide they want to be a B.A.C.A. kid, they can give us a call back and we will make it happen.” Shaggy passionately continued, “Usually within that first 24 hours, we hear back that they want to be part of our family. We welcome them and let them know we will be coming back with a few of our friends. That is when we reach out to all our 28 chapters in the state of Texas and [the] surrounding area to see who can join us in welcoming the child. There is no telling how many people will show up. It can be 20, 30 or even up to 50 people.” This visit is what B.A.C.A. calls a Level One. It is when the entire group makes the ride on their big bikes to welcome that child into the biker family at a location where the child feels safe. They have a brief ceremony where the “heroes” are presented with their own B.A.C.A. vest, or “cut,” as the group calls them, with a patch on the back, with the child’s very own road name. It serves to make them feel like they are a part of the group. That group then gets assigned to that child as their primaries. They are then there for that child 24/7 around the clock. The biker tells the child that they are now a part of their family, which also means, “We’ve got your back,” empowering the child. “One of the big things we like to do is give kids back the control that has been taken from them. We tell them they are in charge.
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C O MM U N I T Y & C U L T U R E
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