Sophie Tweed-Simmons - daughter of legendary rocker Gene Simmons - has lent her name to Sophie's Place, a new one-stop centre in Surrey to help abused children.

Tweed-Simmons, 19, whose family has a home in Whistler and spends time in the Lower Mainland, will help with fundraising efforts for the centre.

"They asked if they could use my name. And of course, who would say no to that?" said Tweed-Simmons, whose famous parents were on hand Sunday morning for the centre's opening.

"When I was in high school, I did a lot of travelling and working in orphanages around the world. But I never really thought about helping kids where I live because I never thought there was a problem. It's not visible [the abuse] to everyone, but it does happen," said Tweed-Simmons.

Her actress mom Shannon Tweed, and father, former KISS rock band frontman Gene Simmons, looked on with more than 100 others as the centre was opened, taking video and pictures on their cellphones.

Sunday's event also provided an opportunity for the film crew of the reality TV show Gene Simmons Family Jewels to get footage for an episode.

The new space is located in Surrey's Centre for Child Development on 140th Street, a partly government-funded facility that provides therapy and assistance to kids with physical and mental disabilities.

Sophie's Place - which is about 1,000 square feet -has already been renovated with donated materials and time, but more funding will be needed to provide support services and for a planned expansion.

Modelled after the Zebra Centre in Edmonton, Sophie's Place is meant to be a single point of contact for the roughly 1,000 abused children in the Lower Mainland who come to authorities' attention each year.

It means that physically or sexually abused children won't have to move from place to place repeating their statements to doctors, police, social workers from the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development and Crown counsel representatives.

The idea is also to provide an environment where children feel warm and safe.

The centre will also provide sup-port services such as counselling. The model in Edmonton has significantly increased conviction rates on abused-children cases, according to the RCMP.

Tweed-Simmons has already been involved in other charity work, including with Variety, the Children's Charity of B.C.

She became involved in the project with Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts through a mutual acquaintance, Howard Blank, the vice-president of media and entertainment for Great Canadian Casinos.

The RCMP initially spearheaded the notion of the one-stop centre, said Watts, adding she didn't want to see it languish in years of study.

"It was because of the project that everyone came together," said Watts.

Gerard Bremault, CEO of Surrey's Centre for Child Development, welcomed Tweed-Simmons' support.

"It's, of course, extremely disturbing that any child be subject to abuse. It's additionally disturbing to know that very vulnerable children with special needs experience approximately four times the abuse of all other children," he said.

Tweed-Simmons' part in the project has the full support of her parents, who made time at Sun-day's event to greet people and pose for photos. Simmons did a small dance step and shook a rattle as the Vancouver-based Carnival Band blared out music at the start of the event.

Tweed, an actress originally from Newfoundland, said she was glad they had raised their daughter to have empathy and help others.

Simmons hinted there might be other Sophie's Places.

"This may be the first of many," he told reporters.

ghoekstra@vancouversun.com

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