A DCAC Volunteer Shares Her Story of Joy and Hope

My name is Melanie Brown, and I attend Colby College in Waterville, Maine. I’m currently in my sophomore year and I plan to double major in Psychology and English. Colby has a period in-between semesters known as JanPlan, during which students may pursue a month of study on campus or travel elsewhere for internship or volunteer opportunities. I chose to return to my hometown in Colorado and spend my January at the DCAC.


I chose the DCAC because I love working with children, and I hope to one day enter a career that can match my love of kids with my passion for mental health. However, as my start date approached, I began to feel a little nervous. After all, the kids who come into the center are often deeply traumatized. They suffer from the incredible violence they’ve witnessed or the horrific abuse they’ve sustained. What would these kids be like? What was I going to see? I imagined I would say the wrong thing to a child and cause a massive breakdown. I imagined kids crying as they came in and crying as they left. I imagined waiting rooms full of lost-looking mothers twisting tissues, quiet fathers with their heads down and backs bowed. I imagined a place full of children and adults completely disengaged from normality and reality, frozen in time and adrift in unknown waters.

Luckily, my first few hours at the DCAC convinced me of how very wrong I had been. To my infinite surprise, the little girls that came in for therapy wanted me to read the same princess books I remembered loving as a child. The boys wanted to build Lego towers and then break them to pieces in completely normal, boy-like glee. Brothers tugged their sisters’ braids, sisters colored pink markers on the backs of their brothers’ necks. These kids were totally kid-like, showing the same joyous enthusiasm for snack time as any other child, the same stubborn disobedience of their parents’ orders.

I was shocked. Where was the crying, the somber hush, the whispering and heavy sighing? Where were the signs of trauma and pain that I expected to be so evident in every child and family member that came for help? Getting to play and laugh with kids in such completely normal ways became my favorite part of working at the DCAC. I was inspired every day by the remarkable resiliency of children, by their incredible ability to overcome profound trauma.

That is not to say that I didn’t feel, at times, the weight of reality. Sometimes parents would call crying. Sometimes a child would throw a fit with unexpected hysterics. But ultimately, kids want to get better, and in the safe, nurturing home of the DCAC, kids will get better. Kids are tough. They have within them a joy that is irrepressible, even when up against some of life’s most staggering tragedies.

One of my favorite moments came after playing with a little girl while her mom was meeting with one of our therapists. We played with plastic animals and decided to put the lion away in a cage and feed him only lettuce so that he would become a vegetarian and never want to eat anyone again (it worked). When her mom returned, the little girl didn’t want to go. She didn’t fuss or throw a fit, but she made it clear that she and I were playing farm and that mom would just have to wait. She felt comfortable at the DCAC, and she simply wanted to be a kid again. In that moment, her trauma was not a factor; the only important thing was that all the animals had places to sleep, and that the lion had his carrots for dinner.

I encourage anyone who is thinking of volunteering at the DCAC to do so. The time I spent there was so valuable, and illuminated for me how remarkably hopeful a place like this can be. The work that the DCAC does is so crucial for these kids, and your time is invaluable in helping us provide hope and restore childhood.

You may click HERE to go directly to a Volunteer Application Form!