Woman pulls wagon from Savannah to Atlanta for child abuse awareness

JEFFERSONVILLE, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – This week marks the 10 year anniversary since one woman walked from Savannah to Atlanta, while pulling an eight-hundred pound wagon.
Rachel Milano coordinated the walk of love to raise awareness for child and sexual abuse..
in honor of the anniversary — she’s retracing her steps.

For the Walk of Love anniversary, Rachel Milano is doing something different.

“This time, we’re going to stop in every community and do a memorial vigil for each of the trauma types in each of the community,” Walk for Love founder Rachel Milano said.

In honor of her sister and all the victims of child and sexual abuse..

“I came up with the idea one day that I should push it from Savannah to Atlanta in memory of my sister who did not survive our circumstances of traumatic violation,” she said.

Milano was six-years old and Heather, seven.

“Heather and I, and my other siblings, grew up in what my social worker said was a den of snakes,” Milano said.

Her abuser? Milano’s environment.

“It was my mom with physical, mental and emotional abuse and it was the people she was connected to who she would basically sell us to get drugs, sell drugs to make money and we would then be sexually exposed in that nature,” she said.

At 10-years old, Milano got out of the foster care system and was adopted.

“Being separated from your siblings before saying goodbye, my brother was in one state my sister was in another state, my other sister was dead, and then there I was. Trying to find my footing somewhere I’ve never been before, with people I’ve never seen before, with a life I’ve never had before,” Milano said.

Being a survivor of traumatic experiences, in 2008 Milano walked 250 miles with a mobile memory garden as a symbol of perseverance. Goldy, as she calls the wagon, encourages society to break the shackles of shame and stigma so the ground can be ready to receive the seed of restorations.

“Those who have experiences traumatic violation types to get on the road to restoration because, really that’s where we begin intervention, is self healing,” she said.

The mobile memorial garden isn’t just for child and sexual abuse.

“Broken up, each of these traumatic violation types they have a community of numbers or statistics individual, but together as a whole of traumatic violations, we represent a 3rd of the American population,” she adds.

Milano says victims shouldn’t feel ashamed or intimidated, and encourages those to receive support and help.

“In the gardens of restoration, you can see that beauty can come from your pain,” Milano said.