The Campbell County Children’s Center received a $5,000 check on Tuesday morning from the Erie Insurance Foundation, with the charity being selected for the gift by the local E.E. Hill Insurance.

“Erie Insurance gives an award every year to the insurance agency in East Tennessee that contributes the most to local charities,” E.E. Hill Insurance Vice President Jonathan Finley said. “They call it the Agency of the Year award, and this year, Erie recognized us as contributing the most to several charities, charitable donations. And as a reward for that, the Erie Foundation allows us to contribute $5,000 of their money to the charity of our choosing, and we chose the Campbell County Children’s Center. There’s a lot of worthy charities, a lot of charities that certainly need as much help as we can give them, but we felt very, very strongly that the work that the children’s center is doing in Campbell County to help abused and neglected children was worthy of this donation — and they definitely needed this donation.”

E.E. Hill Insurance President Lansden Hill, his staff and Campbell County Children’s Center staff were all on hand for the check presentation.

“We were very pleased to do this,” Finley said. “They have a tremendous organization here. They do such good work for the community, and the work they do with the children, these abused children, is just fantastic.”

Campbell County Children’s Center CEO Tracie Davis was not expecting the donation.

“It was a very wonderful surprise,” Davis said. “I was completely taken by surprise when Jonathan actually called me. The timing is wonderful because as you know, we’re doing a fundraiser this Thursday, but we’re really working on trying to grow the number of staff that we have here because at this time, we only have seven staff — and part of those are part-time, and we serve three counties.”

The children’s center is working to hire a new position, Davis said.

“It’s a dual position,” Davis said. “It’s a victim advocate and also a child protective investigative team coordinator, and what that person will do is travel between the three counties with our forensic interviewer and help to coordinate our monthly meetings and just a lot of data entry.”

Davis called it a vital role.

“They’re the first person that the child and family come in contact with here on site, and they follow them all the way through court,” Davis said.

That’s not only the position the children’s center has goals to add, she said.

“We do fundraise because we have to, to make it, and so this just makes it so much more attainable,” Davis said. “And we are just very thankful that they considered us. I didn’t even know that that opportunity was out there. So like I said, it’s a blessing, one of those that you don’t even see coming but we’re very grateful for, Lansden and his staff’s support.”