In honor of National Child Abuse Prevention Month, CASA of the Pikes Peak Region will be hosting its 25th Annual Light of Hope fundraising lunch. The goal is to raise $250,000 throughout April to go towards helping children in t he CASA program. According to the organization, there were almost 18,000 referrals made to the Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline from El Paso and Teller Counties in 2024. The Pikes Peak region has the most calls in the entire state. Anyone interested in attending the lunch has until April 16 to RSVP. The lunch will take place at the DoubleTree Hotel on East Cheyenne Mountain Boulevard from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 23. While CASA has helped around 575 kids in the last fiscal year, they say that there are still 800 kids who need a CASA volunteer. There are three different types of volunteers; Dependency and Neglect These volunteers advocate for children in the Department of Human Services and Family Court because of abuse they've endured at home. They "gather information and make recommendations that help judges decide" what's best for children. Milton Foster Children's Fund These volunteers help children in foster care get access to educational opportunities and "enrichment" that helps children build the lifelong skills necessary to become healthy adults. Supervised Exchange and Parenting Time These volunteers monitor and document supervised exchanges between parents and/or supervised parenting sessions. If you're interested in attending a volunteer info session, you can RSVP here. _______Watch KOAA News5 on your time, anytime with our free streaming app available for your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and Android TV. Just search KOAA News5, download and start watching. ...read more read less