To our supporters and those who care about missing and sex-trafficked children in Texas,
4theONE Foundation was started in November of 2015 by a small group of individuals who at that time, had been working together for a little over a year to find and recover missing, exploited and sex-trafficked children in North Texas. Our team of four recognized the need to establish a nonprofit to build credibility in our community and establish ourselves as a legitimate and trusted source of help for families, law enforcement and fellow nonprofits in recovering vulnerable children.
We have since grown from four volunteers including one private investigator, to over 35 active volunteers including 19 private investigators. We have teams based in the Texas cities of Denton, Dallas, and Fort Worth, working together to recover kids throughout Dallas/Fort Worth and surrounding suburbs.
Together, we have helped families, local and Federal law enforcement agencies, Child Protective Services, and Sex Trafficking Victim Advocacy Agencies recover over 215 missing youth. We primarily focus on minors, with our youngest recovered child being just 12 years old. We have also assisted in recovering a few adults with diminished mental capacities who were being sex trafficked.
Of those we have recovered, over half are survivors of exploitation or sex-trafficking. For clarification, we categorize a child as having been exploited when they had been missing and were found with an adult who was sexually assaulting them, but the child was not being sold for sex to other individuals. A child who was sex-trafficked is one who was a victim of commercial sex, meaning they were being sold to be raped and sexually assaulted.
We sincerely thank all who have supported our efforts to find and recover missing, abused and shattered children. Whether you were one of our early supporters who helped us get off the ground when no one knew we existed, or you encouraged your company to donate software to help us gain critical information, or you are a monthly donor, please know we could not have found these kids and helped to end the horror of being raped again, and again, and again, day after day, without your sacrifice and generosity.
We wish we could say that sex trafficking of children in the United States is rare. However, there are literally thousands of children being sold for sex every day in Texas alone. We are grateful for each ONE we recover, and even more grateful for being able to recover 71 kids in 2020 (nearly double the number recovered in 2019). But what weighs heavily on our hearts are the horrors being endured by these children while they wait and wish for someone to help them.
Law enforcement detectives typically have dozens of open cases with everything from domestic violence to armed robbery dividing their time, and without obvious evidence of immediate danger (clear evidence of danger at the initial stage of a case for a missing teen is not common), the missing case gets a low priority. Family members, if they are involved in the child’s life, are overwhelmed in the moment, and friends are well-meaning but do not have the skill or experience to handle the situation. This is why these children need us searching for them.
We can find and recover them. In fact, we could find hundreds of kids each year if we had additional funding. Funding for software and technologies that are commonly used in marketing and tech companies would allow us to pinpoint locations and identities of sex-trafficked kids and their traffickers anywhere in the United States. Funding for staff data analysts and investigators would move us from being a 100% volunteer force working who recover kids when we are “off work,” to working full-time, greatly decreasing the number of times a child must endure the horrors trafficking.
We need YOUR help to accomplish our goal of finding hundreds of children each year. We need your donations. We need your prayers. We need your corporate contacts and partnerships. We need your knowledge and skills. We need YOU.
Our website and contact information for donations, volunteering and partnerships are:
Mailing Address Email Phone Donate
4theONE Foundation admin@4theone.org (972) 351-8777 https://4theone.org/donate
1800 S Loop 288
Suite 396 – 152
Denton, TX 76205
Thank you for your support and for helping us move forward. Together we can recover ONE more…hundreds of times.
Sincerely,
Dennis Ozment
Executive Director, 4theONE Foundation