Educate youth to prevent child trafficking & Abuse

We had a very busy summer educating youth all over Central Florida! A few of the groups we impacted over the summer:

-       OCPS Homeless Training Event;

-       Unleashing You DJJ Conference Table event

-       Team Karim Memorial Walk

-       Foster youth

-       OCSO Youth Camp

-       Osceola Children’s Cabinet

-       Boys and Girls Club

-       Youth Shelter

-       Hosted Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program

-       10 Back to School Events

-       DJJ Youth

-       Resource Expo – Bithlo

-       Guardian Ad Litem Training

-       Seeds of Hope

-      Osceola Mental Health Counselors

We had the oportunity to educate close to 500 youth and adults over the summer! 

With all the new opportunities, we have grown our Educational Program Partners to 11 as we are expanding into several Middle Schools and additional youth focused programs this fall and into next year.

We've secured an additional grant from the Magruder Foundation and those funds have helped us expand outside of Orange County down into Osceola county. Plus July bonus Day!! We hit our goal of $5,000 total, $3,500 from GlobalGiving and a generous new donor for $1,500 to hit our goal! We are so grateful. We've applied for two more grants

Our next big fundraising event is Nov 18th, Lights on For Children which will be one of our first fundraising event leading up to Giving Tuesday. Stay tuned for that opportunity!

One of our favorite stories is always when youth really see for themselves what's happening. After two weeks of training with the foster youth, one of their own ran away. When the boys found out what happened, they all wanted to go get her, to protect her and keep her safe. She came back and learned the importance of being safe and not everyone is your friend.

Kids want to make a difference with each other, they just need to learn how.

We love what we do and are grateful for your continued support!

Together we can #endexploitation!

Links:

• Interview after winning Victory Cup
• Non-Profit works to educate kids

Wow what a start to the year!!!

January started off jumping right into training with the Boys and Girls Clubs, Christian Service Center and many Human Trafficking Awareness and Prevention Month activities like the Red Sand Events and Human Trafficking Awareness Days throughout the month!  We have expanded our reach out to Hillsborough County (Tampa) as member of the HCPS School Human Trafficking Task Force as we geared up the roll out of Student Online Safety roll out in Febuary!

Our Presidnet traveled to DC as she was invited to a very high level round table with leaders from around the nation to collaborate on solutions to keep our kids safe. She also had the opportunity to advocate for our children with members of the Congress on two important pieces of Legislation to keep our kids safe online - the EARN It ACt and Kids Online Saftey Act. Both very bi-partisan and important to hold big tech accountable in protecting our kids.

As a lead advocate and educator in the country, out President was invited out to Night of Hope, the Friday prior to the Super Bowl in Phoenix to continue the work we did out there in 2021 and recieved an Award for our educational work.

Being a part of a the 1st roll out of an Online Safety and exploitation awareness program in the 7th largest School District in nation has been extraordinary! Middle Schooler participating in PE and High Schoolers in Social Studies are being educated by trained teachers to ensure our kids have access to important, life saving knowledge.

Speaking at the Circuit 10 Syposium opened more doors and schools for us to speak at in April. We educated 1500 students in Hardee County and will be educating dozens of Guardian Ad Litem's in Polk County in July.

Being selected for the Victory Cup Initative was such an honor and there was quite a bit of time spent on preping for the Big Breakfast March 2nd. Out of 85 applications, we were selected along with 9 other local organizations to be coached on how to craft a 2 minute and 30 second 'story' that tells other what we do out in the world.

There we many events we had the opportunity to attend around the commuinty and at Valencia College of Public Safety and University of Central Florida. Working closely with the Community Resource Center out of the Orange County Sheriff's Office and other community leaders, we have the opportunity to raise awareness in and around Central Florida.

From Stop the violence event to Impacting Homelessness to educating UCF Students to Parents at middle schools at health events, we've been busy out in the community!

Probably the most exciting thing to happen to us the past 4 months is winning the Victory Cup Iniative. As they say, the right message, at the right time to the right audience. We won $78,000 of unrestricted funds!

With our Orange County Grant, we've educated over 1000 young people, adults and parents. 700 middle school students in Seminole County and 300 students in Brevard County. We had the opportunity to use Grant funds from Care America both the Brevard and Orange County Sheriff's office to educate and empower those students, along with many of the events we attended and for that we are grateful.

The 2nd most exciting this for us is the ablity to expand our team and to hire community partners to train, participate in outreach, and marketing.

3rd most exciting thing - for the 1st time in 8 years, we have enough revenue along with the funds from the Victory Cup for our President to take a salary. That is a huge victory for this organization and all involved.

Thank you for your continued support in the fight againsat online exploitation and inperson child trafficking. It truly does take a village and we are grateful for you to be a part of that village.

Forever grateful!

Jan Edwards

President and Chief Change Maker

Links:

• Victory Cup Winning Pitch
• News Coverage from the Victory Cup

WOW!

What a 4th Quarter we had with youth and adults around the nation!

Our October started out with us being at the Black Hills Pow Wow. We hosted a table with one of our partners out in South Dakota Pathfinder, a safe house for Native women. We spoke and educated hundreds of native brothers and sisters about child exploitation, online abuse and trafficking.

We continued our educational programs with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Florida throughout the quarter. They are one of our favorite partners as they fully understand the importance of educting youth about what's happening online and offline. Overall we've educated almost 500 youth with them from the summer through the fall. We look forward to continuing the partnership into 2023.

There were several tabling events we participated in to engage with and educate the community. Events at Community Centers for National Night Out, Halloween Haunted Houses, along with Health and Safety events at Colleges, Elementary and Middle Schools. We impacted close to a thousand lives out in the community with our informational Jenga game so we could talk with parents about ways to keep their kids safe. We were invited to speak at Rollins College to a Social Justice class and ganined two new Interns for our program and have been invited back again in the Spring!

Working with Title One and Alternative High School students is so rewarding and we've been invited back to multiple Alternative school this year to educate and empower older youth.

Impacting legislation at the Federal Level that keeps kids safe, especially online, is an important part of our Advocacy work. We traveled to DC to meeting with Congressional Representatives and Sentors to have them hear from the voices of our kids. This past year, we educated close to 7,000 students and hundres of adults. The teens voices must be heard at the Federal level and that's what we bring; Real stories about real people who are being exploited.

We were recognized this summer by the Orange County Sheriff's Office as a community Parnter for the work we do with the CRC and educating kids ing the Sheriff's Summer Program.

Our CEO was invited to be part of a panel on Effective Advocacy with NCOSE in November. This conference is attended by thousands of people across the world as it's is done via zoom. Was an honor to be selected and invited to share our perspective. Our CEO was on the panel with NCOSE, RAINN and National Childrens Alliance.

We closed out Novemember with our Lights on For Children event leading up to Giving Tuesday. We raised over $10,000 via individual donors and the GlobalGiving Platform. We are so grateful for our donors and partners. We also won another grant, Cares Amercia and invited to participate with the Victory Cup Intiative, where we compete for prize money by sharing our story. Last years winner recieved $82,000 of unrestricted funds! We look forward to being that inspiring as well. 

We were also invited to educate the Lakota Tribal Educators at a conference in December, however, that's when the big snow happened all accross the mid-west. When a Governor shuts down a state, you know it's serious. We'll be back there next year!

Being invited back to talk to students is always an honor. It means we did a good job the first time and the faculty understand the importance of this conversation. I'm going to leave with one story about a young girl you helped impact.

We went back to a High School in Brevard County (Space Coast) to educate the Freshmen. Our CEO was 5 classes in with two more to go when a student approached her. She said " Miss Jan, do you remember me?"

Jan said, "Yes, of course"

Then the student said one of the most profound things ever. She said, " I had to come say thank you for saving my life.' Jan blinked a coupld times to get the tears out of her eyes and the student continued. "You see, if I hadn't taken your class back in April and learned I and my friend were being groomed to be trafficked, I don't think I'd be here right now." Jan acknoweledged her for her courage and taking the tools and applying them. She said,"I just had to come say thank you." They hugged and Jan went on to teach two more classes before sobbing in her car at the end of the day.

That is one life. One story of hundreds that we may never know about. And we don't need to. This is why you continue to support this imporant mission and we are forever grateful.

An old Proverb says, "Blessed Are Those Who Plant Trees Under Whose Shade They Will Never Sit"

That is who you are for the world and the kids we educate.

Thank you!

We have had a very busy summer!

Here's what we want to share with you and keep up dated on the continual impact your contributions make out in the world with children.

Funding

We applied for several grants and won 2 of them!

Monthly Donations - our goal is to raise our monthly donations, we are currently at $125/mo with GlobalGiving up to $400/month we are starting in 2023. If you would like to be part of that, please let us know. GlobalGiving has a 200% match on the 4th month program which is pretty cool.

Plus we generated revenue on training youth at the Boys and Girls Clubs in Orlando and we are expanding into the fall!

Mission Ambassadors and Interns

We continue to build. We gained 8 new Mission Ambassadors and two volunteers, 3 of which are out in South Dakota.

We had 4 new interns for Summer, with 3 carry over. We have 2 new for Fall with new more carry over - total of 5

Parent Tech Talks

June – Parenting Beyond the Rules – Connie Albers

July – ACES Matter - Cendie Sanford

Aug – Digital Empowerment -  Matt Richardson, Sr. Director for ATII -

Sept - Power of Positive Childhood Experiences - Tammy -Toney Bulter, Founder, Nurses United Against Trafficking.

You can watch these on our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB08mbeRx4mqPwL3Bt3ulYg

Parents continue to thank us for sharing such valubable information and we are forever grateful for our community around the world for sharing their brilliance with you.

Youth Training

We trained 240 students at Eau Gaille HS in May and look forward to going back this fall.

Over the Summer, we trained 150 kids for Orange County Sheriff’s, 300 kids for Boys and Girls Clubs, 25 Girls and Boys Clubs Directors, 25 Home School Parents, 50 Dads on the Rise, 36 Youth and 35 Parents from New Life Church, SD.

Jan was a panelist and moderator for the Modern Slavery Summit in Australia - gotta love zoom. She's been invited to speak at the local Childrens Cabinets and the SWFL Human Trafficking Coalition Presentation. We are now also a part of the Hillsbourogh County Public School Human Trafficking Task Force!

We added 8 new Mission Ambassadors and 4 new Interns. We continue to grow and expand thanks to you!

Community Events/Speaking Opportunities

We did our first presentation in French over the summer! Very grateful for the opportunity to expand our education. Honored to be a part of the Children’s Advocacy Center Certificate program - we gave two presentations over the summer.

Grateful to have traveled to DC with one of our Survior Leaders to advocate for legislation to protect kids online with NCOSE. We have over 30 meetings and movement happened. We love advocating and educating our leaders what's happening in their backyard. We traveled to South Dakota to work with our Survivor Leader Lin Ruth to bring Florida Legislation to South Dakota.

Being a go to host with One World Orlando, who works with the State Department to host international Law Enforcement Leaders twice this summer, including new friends from Kosovo.

With the World Games the summer, had the opportunity to be part of a Recovery Operation to learn the back end operations of looking to recover missing and trafficked children. Happy to share we recovered 7 of the 12 girls.

Would have to say the bright spot of our outreach was being a vendor at the Florida Kids and Family Expo - we saw and educated hundreds of kids and parents. We played trivia jenga - it was just enough time to engage with the kids and to talk with the parents about ways to keep their kids safe. 

Highlights:

We were accepted and Completed UCF Capacity Building Program setting us up to apply for local grants! Our President has beeh invited by Valencia/UCF Colab for Human Trafficking Educational Book Author along with several nationally written articles.

Upcoming Events

We traveled back up to DC to emplore Senators to co-sponsor the Earn it Act, Kids Onlline Safety Act and the No Trafficking Zone Act.   We'll be attending the Florida Statewide Human Trafficking Summit in early October and then we'll be reaching out to the tribal communities at the Black Hills Pow Wow in South Dakota and following up on getting legislation into their next session.

We have been invited to participated several events this fall at schools and community leaders and will be actively speaking at several events as well to continue our mission of educating and empowering youth and families.

Mark your calendars for 11/20 - it'sa our annual light up the night with Lights on For Children! For more information on what you can do to help check the website out here: https://lightsonforchildren.org/

Thank you for you continued support and belief in this mission.

Our children are waiting for us to come make a difference for them and educate them on how to stop the online predition of our kids.

May the Lord continue to keep and protect you!

Jan

Links:

• Interview with on Lynns' Warriors

Hello Summer!

We pray this finds you and yours doing well. We've had a very busy quarter with many exciting things to share!

We added two new Board members, Maurice Edwards with NCMEC and Mike Lang, Nurse Care. Happy to have them aboard!

It was a busy quarter! We raised over $1,900 in contributions and added three new monthly donors!

Mission Ambassadors and Interns

We continue to build. We gained 3 new Mission Ambassadors and two youth mission ambassadors.

We had 3 new interns for Spring, with 2 carry over. We have 3 new for Summer, with new more carry over - total of 5

We had 3 amazing Parent Tech Talks - including one with Det. Joseph Scaramucci, out of Waco, TX dropping some great information!

We Educated over 2,000 students and adults this past quarter with more tee'd up for the summer! Trinity Prep, Eau Gallie High School, and at Night of Hope in Arizona!

We were super busy out in the community!

Jan was on a Podcast and showed our Film out in Arizona. Spoke at the Night of Hope to 1,500 students and adults. We hosted the 14th Annual HT Awareness Days & Film Festival with United Abolitionists. There were 500 attendees in person and online. Our President spoke with other warriors at an O.U.R event and as the Chairperson of the Seminole County Human Trafficking Task Force supported the Prayer Vigil for those enslaved around the world. She was also invited to be a speaker at Charleston College to discuss the current online environment, sugaring and ways to stay safe. She attended the Mid-South Conference in Lake Charles, LA, then traveled to California for a Super bowl Awareness Event.

A big highlights was having our logo on a Race Car at the Grand Prix races in St. Petersburg, Fl. Our President, Jan Edwards, was invited to speak at multiple women’s groups around the state raising awareness and funds.

Our President was interview on over 40 podcasts and radio shows around the nation to share our information and raise awareness about our training. Between our Parent Tech Talks, our team did several tabling events at schools around Central Florida and then she embarked upon a upper mid-west tour, speaking at a Survivor Retreat, Sioux Falls, SD home school families and then attended the GRIT Conference in Sheridan Wyoming. There is a great need for our programs out west. More to come about that!

We spoke at a 5th grade class in March and following that class we have decided to develop 4^th and 5^th Grade program using I am Little Red for the 1st part of hte training followed by a 2nd day about Social Media and laws that protect out kids. Our kids are being targeted younger and younger. We must equip them sooner rather than later.

Two upcoming projects and opportunities we are excited to share about is we have signed an MOU with the Boys and Girls Club of Central Florida to take our programs into their summer camps. Please pray this makes the difference we are all committed to making so we can expand our reach beyond Central Florida.

The second exciting project is the development of a Podcast with our President Jan Edwards and Detective Joe Scaramucci to discuss the whole gamut of human trafficking - from prevention education to apprehension and conviction of predators and traffickers. Should be exciting and educational.

We couldn't do any of this without your continued support for which we are truly grateful.

Thank for your standing with us to educate, empower and prevent our kids from being lured into a life that turns into a nightmare.

Blessings to you and yours,

Jan

Links:

• Interview with on Lynns' Warriors