Her story begins in 1874; both parents had died and the New York Commission of Charities and Correction gave her to Mr. and Mrs. Connolly.

This couple was assigned to care for her and to report on her progress; instead they abused her. She was locked away, beaten and rarely fed.

A concerned neighbor found the police would not intervene because no crime was being committed. Mary Ellen’s case found a hero in the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The founder and president of the organization, Henry Bergh, was able to persuade a judge to hear the case.

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Mary Ellen was brought into court wrapped in a horse blanket. Allow me to share her words with you, the words of an abused child. “My father and mother are dead. I don’t know how old I am. I call Mrs. Connolly mama. I have never had but one pair of shoes, but I cannot recollect what that was… My bed at night has been only a piece of carpet stretched on the floor underneath a window. Mama has been in the habit of whipping and beating me almost every day…I have no recollection of ever having been kissed by anyone.”

Mary Ellen was removed from her abusers, and her case was one that caused citizens to push for an association to protect the children who cannot protect themselves.

Mary Ellen’s small and helpless voice touches us more than a hundred years later, because it is the voice of a child, alone and scared. Children need the protection of adults, and too often that need is not met.

We have all watched the news and seen and heard of terrible cases involving parents who abuse and neglect their children. We also hear, on occasion, of families that are torn apart by a system too busy to listen. Not all parents are abusive, and many deserve second chances that never come.

We all sit and cry and wonder why someone doesn’t do something, and wish that we could do something ourselves. I am training, at the moment, to be a CASA volunteer. I have met only a few that know about CASA and I would like to explain, in hopes of giving many of you the opportunity to make a difference.

CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate, and they advocate on childrens’ behalf in the wilderness of the system. A CASA volunteer works an average of 20 hours a month, five hours a week. I can testify that a potential volunteer is checked out, interviewed and extensively trained. A CASA volunteer works only for the child, and for the child’s best interests.

Many of these children do not have the permanency they need from their family or from their environment. Each day might bring a new foster home, a different set of people, a new school.

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A CASA volunteer is involved with one child through the entire process, from beginning to end, and may be the only stable, dependable person in that child’s life.

I have not been assigned a case yet; I have not even finished my training, but the CASA program already has rewarded me. I know more about myself, about others, and about children than I would not have know otherwise. I know that this will be an experience that will change my life, and I hope that some of you will join me.

The next time the pictures start to flash on the local news of children in need, children like Mary Ellen, and you wonder what you can do, I suggest you call 1-800-628-3233.