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HAMILTON — There's an old saying that sometimes it takes the wounded to cure the sick and Carol Cooley lives by it.

That's why, for the fourth year, cane-toting "Evangelist Cooley" — as she's called in the Fourth Ward — hosted her Gospel Block Party along with Living Water Ministry on Saturday at Jefferson Elementary's playground on Ninth Avenue.

She's been emotionally scarred by sexual molestation as a child, she said. Physically, she's endured being hit by a truck, had two brain surgeries for tumors, lost two of her guitar-playing fingers and undergone knee replacement surgery. Still, she praises God, particularly with her music ministry at the Thursday suppers at Living Water.

"I've been through a lot, but I'm still here by the grace of God," Cooley, 58, said. "I just want to tell these kids ... it happened to me, I don't want to happen to you."

Children of all ages, toddlers to teens, turned out for the block party where they were treated to improvisational gospel performances by Cooley, her son, and her two gospel-rapping teenage grandsons. They also played basketball, jumped rope, blew up balloons and were given a private tour of a Hamilton fire engine by local firefighters. Of course, there were snacks — watermelon, hot dogs and hamburgers.

Firefighter Jason Callihan said to a group of girls after a tour, "That's it. That's all there is to it. You can be firemen too, or firewomen, I should say."

Mariah Hollin, 10, who took special interest in the gadgets on the fire engine, responded, sparking a few laughs.

"We don't want to be women. We'll put books on top of our heads so we won't grow up," she said

The free event also attracted a diverse crowd — Hispanics, blacks and whites — as it has in years past. Such a display of unity is needed in the Fourth Ward, which was rocked with tension in 2005 after the rape of a 9-year-old girl by a Hispanic suspect, said Claudine Recalde, a volunteer with Living Water.

Her husband is a minister from Paraguay and they have three biracial daughters.

"When people get to know each other, there's less tension," Recalde said. "We tried to make something that's open and inviting. We don't want to exclude anybody."

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2175 or chiggins@coxohio.com.