 |
|
The
Sorensen family (left to right) Anton, Laura, Annika, Jay and
Aleksei.
|
Jay Sorensen is mild-mannered until the
topic turns to child abuse.
"It really upsets me to see
children who have been harmed by adults," says Sorensen, 46, of
Shorewood.
"Children don’t vote. They don’t
have economic power. The way the world treats them reflects that. I
can become very angry with the status we provide to children."
Through the Kids First Fund, a
nonprofit Sorensen founded in 1999, he’s concentrating on one small
corner of the world — Latvia — to shed light on "the dark and
dirty secret no one wants to talk about."
Why Latvia?
"We’re a wealthy country,"
he says, one that acknowledges child abuse exists. Impoverished Latvia
doesn’t discuss it, considering it a "sickness of the
West."
Also, Latvia’s not a culture of
charitable organizations, and Sorensen knew he could put his
experience on the Children’s Outing Association and WUWM Milwaukee
Public Radio boards to use there. "I knew how boards operated and
thought, ‘I can do this. I can start a nonprofit.’
"It’s such a small
country," he adds. "It’s not unlike Wisconsin. It’s a
small country and it needed help."
But the biggest reasons are Sorensen’s
own children; he and his wife, Laura, adopted twin sons Anton and
Aleksei, 11, from Latvia in 1997 and daughter Annika, 7, from South
Korea in 2000.
Kids First Fund provides an opportunity
for them to give back. Plus, during the lengthy adoption process, they
developed relationships with influential Latvians, including the
ambassador, in positions to help.
Those relationships also helped the
nonprofit gain United Nations status.
"I wanted to broaden the exposure
of the organization," he says. "We’re going to be doing
something in another country at some point. It’s a mechanism for us
to be seen and heard."
| Kids First Fund: Helped fund the
Bulduri Family Care Center and held two educational child abuse
conferences, one in 2001 and another in 2003, to teach ways to
investigate cases and offer protection.
Coming soon: Building a
residential shelter in rural Latvia for abused children and
their mothers; the fund is providing up to $120,000 for the
shelter, expected to open in about a year.
Funding information: Kids First
Fund has about $250,000 in the bank; its main funding source is
the Great Online Travel Auction for Kids held in the spring.
How to donate: Send checks
payable to the Kids First Fund Inc., 1916 E. Kensington Blvd.,
Shorewood, WI 53211; donations can also be made online at www.kidsfirstfund.org. |
|
