Arissa Viering | 8/17/2020 | Goodday Mineral Wells | Local Event Updates
WEATHERFORD, TX – On August 16th, 2020, over 500 individuals attended the Save Our Children Rally held at Weatherford Heritage Park to provide awareness and combat child sex trafficking and pedophilia. Scott and Chelsea Dollar, organizers of the rally, are passionate about bringing further awareness to the cause.
CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING IN TEXAS
“Over 600,000 children go missing in the US every year and a large portion of that is from Texas. We all know that these children are not just disappearing.”
Scott & Chelsea Dollar
According to the Texas Attorney General, 25 million people are enslaved worldwide and 79,000 victims of youth and minor sex trafficking are in Texas at any given time. Per the Department of Transportation’s Assessment of the Threat of Human Trafficking in Texas (April 2014), Texas ranked second in the nation with 2,236 incoming tips (calls, emails, tip forms) received by the Polaris Project’s National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) for human trafficking tips in 2013. Today, the average age of child sex trafficking victims reported missing to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is only fifteen years old. In 2019, the National Human Trafficking Hotline received 48,326 contacts in the form of phone calls, emails, online tips, texts, and online chats.
Three weeks ago, Scott Dollar made a single post on Facebook about the cause and, within three weeks, an entire rally was planned. The event on Facebook generated over 2,200 responses from individuals interested in the rally.
THE RALLY
Scott and Chelsea Dollar are very passionate about the prevention of child sex trafficking. Shortly after researching the cause further, Scott was called to bring further awareness and combat the issue within his community further.
“It’s been very tense around town. There’s a lot of negative energy right now. So, we wanted to bring awareness to a subject that we can all rally behind. Saving our children, human trafficking, pedophilia (locally) is an issue. Especially, after finding out more through the local organizations that we have been working with this through, we wanted to bring it to the community. I own a social media company. We have great resources. We were trying to get a large turnout in a short period of time and we knew we could do it – so, that’s what we did to bring awareness to a good cause and to bring good spirits to the town.”
During the rally, Angela Thorne, a survivor and advocate from Mansfield, TX, gave a captivating speech:
With over 500 individuals, the rally had a great turnout:
APPRECIATION FROM THE ORGANIZERS
“I would like to thank everybody that came, especially the city of Weatherford and Weatherford PD, but, mostly, the community. With such short notice, this would have never happened without the community rallying behind it. Hopefully, we can keep fighting for the cause and keep the positivity in the town.”
Scott Dollar
The Dollars are scheduling a candlelight vigil dedicated to the victims in September or October (further details to be announced) at Heritage Park in Weatherford. The march will be held in the evening and will be coordinated to allow the participants to march around the Weatherford Courthouse.
RESOURCES
Survivors of Child Abuse: https://www.nationalchildrensalliance.org/
National Human Trafficking Hotline: https://humantraffickinghotline.org/
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children: https://www.missingkids.org/theissues/trafficking
SOURCES
https://tea.texas.gov/about-tea/other-services/human-trafficking-of-school-aged-children
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/initiatives/human-trafficking
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GALLERY
Former Co-Founder | June 2020-Nov 2020 | Graduate of Texas Christian University with a background in medical anthropology, psychology, and creative writing. Passionate about writing novels. Loved the Mineral Wells community and all that it had offered her and her family.
