Stopping the cycle of violence

MOSES LAKE - Central Washington kicker Jose Camargo milled around Home Center visiting with teammates and observing the furniture until he heard a familiar sound.

A piano.

Just a few disorganized notes escaping the keys.

An avid piano player himself, Camargo made his way over to the instrument and found a young boy with his feet dangling off the bench stretching his fingers from key to key.

Camargo decided to sit down and teach the young boy a few chord progressions that - with some practice - could be made into a song.

"Our coach was just talking to us about how there wasn't as many people as we expected, but if you're impacting just one or two it's a successful day and I really enjoyed it," he said. "You never realize how blessed you are, I guess, until you put yourself into someone else's shoes and you learn someone else's story and you just hear what they have to say and it was pretty eye-opening."

In an effort to promote domestic violence awareness and prevention, the Central Washington University football team and New Hope Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Services held a meet and greet at Home Center Saturday.

Community members were able to visit with the Wildcats as well as listen to domestic violence advocates.

"We want to be able to provide people with information on how to protect themselves, how to keep themselves safe, their friends safe, their family members safe because people might not know or realize what type of situation they're going through and know that there's help available in Grant and Adams counties," New Hope director Carolyn Pence said.

Central's stand against domestic violence comes at a time where football and abuse has unfortunately begun to seem commonplace.

In February 2014, former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was arrested and charged with simple assault charges. Rice was then indicted on aggravated assault charges more than a month later.

Rice applied and was accepted into a pretrial intervention program in May 2014 that would ensure that his charges would be cleared if he complied with certain requirements.

Recently, the Dallas Cowboys' Greg Hardy was suspended for 10 games by the NFL for violating the league's personal conduct policy.

The suspension stemmed from Hardy being found guilty of assaulting a former girlfriend.

Pence applauded the manners of the Central players and their willingness to listen to New Hope advocates or entertain the children who made the trip to Home Center with their families.

"Having these guys here to represent the positive of let's get that promotion of education and information out to people about domestic violence and they're here supporting that so I think it shows that really just because they're big guys they're nice. I think it puts a stigma on a lot of them and this kind of takes that stigma away," she said.

Head football coach Ian Shoemaker said that he sends all his players to Central's Green Dot training, a course that practices realistic ways of intervening in high-risk situations.

"What I want is for our guys to be proactive and be great mentors and great ambassadors to say, hey, not only are we not involved in domestic violence, but we also are trying to do something to decrease the number," he said.

Saturday's meet and greet with New Hope wasn't the Wildcats' first philanthropic venture. The team has reached out in their hometown of Ellensburg as well as Yakima.

Being visible in the community and region is something that Shoemaker places a premium on.

"I think it's a great opportunity for our guys to get a chance to reach out to a different community," he said. "We've reached out in Ellensburg. We've done some different training with our kids. Last week we did the Yakima River cleanup. Sent 85 guys doing four hours of cleanup work around the community and I think any opportunity we get to just shake hands and have people meet our kids is positive and it's good for them as well to kind of talk with these kids that are coming through and parents that are around."

New Hope has two offices located in Moses Lake and Othello that provide a 24-hour crisis line, medical advocacy, legal advocacy, community advocacy, support groups and training.

According to Safe Horizon, nearly 3 million men are victims of physical assault, more than 4 million women experience physical assault and rape by their partners and more than 3 million children witness domestic violence at home each year.

"Domestic violence happens 24/7, 365," Pence said. "It's not just during domestic violence events or months. It happens all the time and people don't want to talk about it. People don't want to say 'this happened to me' or 'I let this happen to me.' It's OK to get help. It's OK, we'll get you to safety."