During homecoming, Christ Church Episcopal School chooses a charity to donate money to. This years charity is called The Family Effect. In Greenville County over 2,400 domestic assaults are reported each year, over 1,300 children are confirmed as neglected or abused and almost 600 are removed from their home by the state. Addiction in the home creates more abused and neglected kids and more high school dropouts than any other single root cause. The Family Effect is a program that works to reduce addiction as a leading cause of family collapse and harm to children in South Carolina, and they strive to lower these numbers.

The Family Effect raises money and recruit volunteers for effective, research-based programs that focus on children and sometimes even entire families. The Family Effect is more than a typical charity; the Director of Community Engagement, Scott Dishman, says, “The Family Effect works closer to the root of the problem.” The best way to stop family collapse through addiction is to prevent addiction from happening in the first place. He also says, “we believe that when we put our resources closer to the root of the problem, the community gets better results, and far fewer children suffer neglect and end up in foster care.” When kids live in a household where addiction is present, they are 4 times more likely to become addicted themselves. The Family Effect works to stop this, and overall, is a great cause for Christ Church to support.