Girl Struggles to Keep Campaign for Other Abused Children Alive

Desiray Bartak has served as a national symbol for sexually abused children for the past year, but the Newbury Park teen-ager is running out of money to keep her effort going.

The financial drain on Desiray’s struggling family has forced the determined 13-year-old to organize a “make-or-break” fund-raiser today to keep alive her organization, Children Against Rape and Molestation.

“It’s put my family in debt, because we wanted to keep it going so badly,” Desiray said in an interview at her family’s home.

Desiray and her mother will be accepting donations at a fund-raising table today in front of a local grocery store. The family hopes to raise nearly $4,000 to pay the costs of mailing newsletters and calling young victims from around the country who have written to Desiray after seeing her on television.

Also, the family needs money to apply to the state for nonprofit status for Desiray’s organization before an early April deadline.

Desiray’s story of being sexually molested by her godfather at the age of 10 and her groundbreaking lawsuit seeking damages against her attacker have been featured on television shows such as “20/20,” “The Home Show” and “Hard Copy.” She has been written about in People magazine, featured in a television documentary and will be the focus of an upcoming ABC “Afterschool Special.”

With all of the exposure, Desiray receives four or five letters a day from other children who have been abused. She answers the letters and even telephones youngsters if asked.

“I like helping people, and knowing that I’m helping people gives me a good feeling in my heart,” Desiray said.

Two years ago, Desiray contacted prominent Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred, who agreed to handle the first-of-its-kind lawsuit by a child against her abuser. In January, Desiray was awarded $2 million by a Los Angeles County jury. But she knew she would never get her attacker to pay the judgment, because he doesn’t have any assets.

“I didn’t do it for the money,” Desiray said. “I did it because I wanted to show other children that we do have power. A lot of kids don’t know that.”

When she was molested, Desiray was visiting overnight at the Palmdale home of Richard Streate, 30, her father’s best friend and Desiray’s godfather. Streate was sentenced in January, 1993, by a judge in Lancaster to three years in prison after pleading guilty to one felony count of committing a lewd act upon a child.

Desiray’s mother, Wayanne Kruger, said there are times when she and her husband--Desiray’s stepfather, currently unemployed from his manufacturing job--want to give up on Desiray’s organization and the $900 long-distance telephone bills that accompany it.

Along with the telephone expense and the cost of producing and mailing Desiray’s newsletter to 200 subscribers, the family needs $1,600 to trademark the organization’s name and to apply for nonprofit status by April 8, the deadline for incorporating, Kruger said.

“Something always happens to keep us going,” Kruger said. “It’s definitely a higher power.”

Kruger pointed to a pink paper cutout in the shape of a heart on which a poem was written for Desiray. The handprint of a small child served as a signature. “For now I know that someone else understands exactly how I feel,” the card read.

“This is what keeps us going,” Kruger said.

Desiray, an eighth-grader at Sequoia Intermediate School in Newbury Park, spends at least 10 hours a week answering mail and calling children who send their telephone numbers in search of someone besides an adult to talk with, she said. She speaks to groups across the country, always encouraging youngsters to “talk and tell.”

Desiray never imagined that her decision to go public with her story would command so much attention.

“It was like a bomb that exploded,” she said.

Desiray’s forceful style, determination and insistence that abused children should empower themselves by suing their attackers have propelled the teen-ager to national prominence, her mother said.

Kruger recalled that attorney Allred told Desiray to expect a wave of media attention for a few days after going public. Then the glare of the spotlight would shift somewhere else. That hasn’t happened, Desiray’s mother said.

“Desiray is not a wave,” her mother said. “She is the ocean.”

Not surprisingly, Desiray says she plans to become an attorney and advocate for children. She and her mother will be holding the fund-raiser outside Albertson’s on Reino Road in Newbury Park from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

FYI

Anyone interested can write to Desiray Bartak through her organization, Children Against Rape and Molestation, at 2060 Avenida de las Arboles, No. 348, Thousand Oaks 91362-1361.