Why We Plant Pinwheels
They show up like spring itself—soft and sudden. One day the ground is bare, and the next, it’s dotted with a hundred tiny whirlwinds, catching the light just right. Colorful pinwheels, rooted in front lawns and schoolyards, near libraries and nonprofits, turning slow in the April breeze like they’ve got all the time in the world.
If you don’t know what they are, they might just look like decorations. Like somebody’s child had a birthday, and the grown-ups went a little overboard.
But they mean something. They stand for something.
We plant pinwheels because not every child gets the kind of childhood we’d want for our own. Not every child feels safe. Not every child goes to sleep with a full belly and a calm mind. And the truth of that—hard as it is—is something we don’t want to turn away from.
The pinwheel came to be a national symbol for child abuse prevention back in 2008. It was chosen not because it was sad or solemn, but because it wasn’t. Because it’s what childhood should look like—bright, carefree, full of motion and light. The kind of thing you’d find stuck in the ground beside a sandbox, or tucked in a flowerpot on a grandmother’s porch.
It reminds us that prevention is not about fear—it’s about hope.
We believe every child deserves what the pinwheel represents: joy, protection, peace. It’s why we walk alongside children and families through their hardest seasons—helping them heal, grow, and find the strength to keep going. We plant these pinwheels to honor the kids we’ve lost. We plant them for the families we walk beside. And we plant them for the ones we haven’t met yet—the ones who, with a little help, can carry resilience forward instead of trauma.
There’s a saying in the South: you tend the garden you’ve got. These pinwheels are our way of tending. Of saying this community will not turn its back. That we will keep showing up—for our kids, our neighbors, and each other.
So if you see a yard full of spinning pinwheels this April, maybe don’t just drive by. Let them stop you, if only for a second. Let them remind you what children deserve.
And maybe—just maybe—plant one yourself.