Proclamation 5495—National Child Safety Month, 1986

The future of our Nation is in the hands of our children. The effects of the loving support, the nurturing, and the instruction we give them now will be felt and magnified a thousandfold in the generations to come.

Sadly, not all of our children live in a warm, loving family environment. In every part of America there are children who are abused, exploited, or abandoned, or who run away from an intolerable home situation to endure worse depravity on the streets of our cities. Unfortunately, this mistreatment may also be a legacy passed on to future generations.

I believe that the American people can accomplish miracles when they are aware of the gravity of a situation. Fortunately, evidence that this awareness is growing is available in community after community across the country, as well as in the increasing involvement of voluntary associations and the private sector in developing programs to protect our children. We are recognizing anew our responsibility as neighbors and friends to extend a helping hand to families and children in trouble. We are examining once again the root causes of the various stresses that families face today, and we are acquiring a stronger sense of society's task to shield families, and especially children, from influences that undermine their sense of harmony, security, and wellbeing. We have begun to see more clearly than ever the importance of values to happiness and stability in the home. These are the best preventives at our disposal.

Where problems in the family have exhausted its resources to cope, much can be done now in the way of treatment and counseling. Communities can contribute by working together to provide safe shelters for runaways and to find adoptive parents for children in need of a loving home.

The Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 293, has designated the month of May 1986 as "Child Safety Month" and authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this event.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the month of May 1986 as Child Safety Month. I urge all Americans and governmental and private entities to observe this month with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-eighth day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and tenth.

RONALD REAGAN