Kids, parents and youth advocates will gather Saturday in Elkhart to rally for child safety, especially from bullying.
A collective of local grassroots groups focused on child safety and human rights will converge Saturday at Elkhart’s Civic Plaza. From 1 to 3 p.m. kids and adults will share a stage to talk about their experiences with suffering trauma.
Leading off the speaker lineup will be Aaron and Nikki Ball, whose 12-year-old daughter Rio Allred ended her life by suicide in 2022. The couple say students at North Side Middle School in Elkhart had bullied Rio after she lost her hair because she had alopecia, an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss.
Others will speak on gun violence and human rights for children of undocumented immigrants.
Organizer Rachel Van Alstine last year founded the nonprofit Parent Coalition for Child Safety.
"We are here on this platform to create spaces for truth telling to exemplify our children's voices," Van Alstine said. "Our children are speaking. Hell, our children are screaming, and nobody's listening."
People are invited to arrive at noon, before the speakers, to check out community resource tables and enjoy dancing and music by a D.J.
That’s also when you can enter to win family fun baskets that will be raffled off. There will be bounce houses, games, food vendors, and the fire department will bring its inflatable firehouse.
Van Alstine says it’s the first Speak Your Truth Rally and she hopes it won’t take another youth suicide to trigger more.
"It took a tragedy for folks to circle back, and we can't lose the momentum, when we knowing that this is the reality that our children are living."
