Bikers Against Child Abuse, or BACA, is an international volunteer organization whose mission is to create a safer environment for abused children, and to empower children to not feel afraid of the world in which they live.

On Friday, members of the Storm Lake Chapter of BACA gave a presentation on the organization to the Webster County Crime Stoppers.

BACA members use “road names” to protect their anonymity, as well as the anonymity of the children, explained the chapter and state president who goes by “Hobo.” Each BACA volunteer chooses a road name, and each BACA child selects their own road name to use as well.

“That’s part of the empowering process,” Hobo said.

BACA works in conjunction with local and state officials who are already in place to protect children, like law enforcement and the Department of Human Services. The organization was founded in 1995 in Utah by a licensed clinical social worker, and has since spread across the United States and even internationally.

BACA is not a motorcycle club, Hobo emphasized. It is an organization of volunteers, and all members undergo a thorough background check to ensure they have no record of crimes against children or crimes involving children. A potential member must participate in the chapter for a minimum of one year before they can receive their BACA patch and officially become a member. There are five Iowa chapters of BACA — Storm Lake, Des Moines, Fairfield, Davenport and Cedar Rapids.

When a biker becomes a full member of BACA, they can be assigned the role of one of two “primaries” for a child, for which the BACA member agrees to be on call 24/7, 365 days a year to that child. BACA is also not a mentorship program — the primaries’ objective is to help the abused child feel safe and empowered to stand up against their abuser in court.

A big part of what BACA does is accompany abused children to court appearances.

BACA will also provide what the organization calls a “Level 2 Intervention” when a credible threat is made against a BACA child. When a situation is determined a Level 2, then BACA volunteers will keep a round-the-clock physical presence at the child’s home until the threat is over and the child feels safe.

Oftentimes, a law enforcement agency or DHS will tell an abused child’s caregiver about the BACA organization. The child’s caregiver must reach out to BACA to ask for help, Hobo said. The accused or the perpetrator cannot live under the same roof as the child, he added.

Webster County Sheriff Luke Fleener said in recent months, BACA has been helpful with several cases.

“Their group gives that support to the victims of the crime, which allows us to focus on investigative stuff and not so much on support, because we can pass that on to them,” he said. “And they really play a big role in court, in those big, huge courtrooms when a victim of a crime has to go up and sit in that stand — they don’t always have a big family support system around them, but they have a lot of these people sitting there.”

The sheriff said he also thinks the look of the bikers is sometimes intimidating to the defendants.

“We recently had one where the accused was turned around trying to stare down the family and the kids,” Hobo said.

So they sat a row of BACA volunteers in front of the victim and their family to shield them from the defendant.

The BACA volunteers sit in the courtrooms to help empower them to tell their story on the stand.

When a case is resolved, the BACA volunteers sort of back away from the children they help.

“We let them make the move to contact us as long as they want to,” Hobo said. “But we don’t want to be the reminder of what they went through, so we don’t keep reaching out to them. That’s the hard part for us.”

Doc, another member of the BACA Storm Lake Chapter, recalled a BACA child he was paired with several years ago. She was around 14 when her case was resolved and she had stopped calling him.

“Five years later, I got a wedding invitation in the mail, and it was from her,” Doc said. “So she never forgot. I went to the wedding and got to see her.”

A year later, that former BACA kid also sent pictures of her new baby to Doc. He said it was a great feeling knowing everything worked out for her, despite what she had been through as a child.

BACA volunteers must have “the biker mentality of honor, integrity and respect,” Hobo said. They must also have a motorcycle that will go highway speeds.

Any motorcycle rider interested in becoming a BACA volunteer can come to any chapter meeting, which can be found online at iowa.bacaworld.org.

“If we can help one kid, it’s worth it,” Hobo said.