First Blog

Hi, I'm Susan Rogers, mother of 4 and step-mother of 2.  Six of the greatest kids in the world.  They have blessed us with 16 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.  I'm sharing my adventure for the first time in its entirety because I believe it will help others understand why we are so passionate about what we do, and why we do it.  In 1998 I founded with the help of my incredible husband, Safety Awareness & Family Education Network, Inc. or  S.A.F.E. Network, Inc.  for short.  Our mission to educate and protect children and teens from sexual abuse, molestation, abduction and exploitation.  A mission I might add that was not a popular one 11 years ago.  But let me take you back a bit so you can get a clearer picture of how this excellent adventure began.

So that there is an additional reference point for later content in this first entry, I also need to explain that at the age of 27 I was raped.  I also have 2 children who were molested when they were very young, by non-family members.  While these experiences were not specific contributors to later events, they most definitely played a part in how those events turned out.

15 years ago, at the age of 50 I sat down to my first computer.  I was determined to make it have more meaning in our home than just another way to entertain ourselves.  Around that same time my husband, Don and I decided to begin homeschooling our youngest son.  He had  just completed 5th grade and that is an entirely seperate subject that would take me off point.  The one aspect of that new responsibility though, was that I knew that computer technology was going to affect his life dramatically as he grew, and knew also that it was important for him to learn how to use it to full advantage.
I built my first website a few months later as a safe environment for him to search the internet through.  We both learned many wondrous things during that first world wide web exploration.  I had no idea at that time that I would soon be entering an entirely new phase in my life.  At that point I was tutoring remedial English students, homeschool and created my own private school umbrella for other homeschoolers, along with working as an instructional aid at the school my son had been attending. 

Looking for a way to bring our lives back into a balance we had missed for awhile I was searching for a way in which we could be of service to our community and perhaps provide a few badly needed dollars as well.  Don and I had worked independently for many years but things in the economy had shifted and he had to find employment working for someone else.  We had been independent so long it felt like pair of shoes that was one size too small.  So sitting down at that computer again I prayed and focused and came up with a simple child safety ID kit that I entitled KidPrints Child Safety ID Kit.  When he came home I asked him if he thought he could sell it.  He was skeptical but, went to our local Office Depot and printed up 25 of them, went to our local Walmart and asked if it would be ok if he did some market research and if people wanted to buy them if it would be ok.  They were very accommodating and said yes.  He was back in an hour and said that he had sold them all.  So we went back to Office Depot and printed up 50 more.  This time he was gone an hour and a half, came back and had sold them all.

Recognizing that we had something worthwhile, I went to work improving and streamlining the kit.  We already had a side business Rogers Marketing Concepts so he went to work after hours and whenever he could contacting schools and businesses showing them how they could give these away to their families/customer base and do some good rather than just giving away pens, pencils and coffee mugs.

We began to see some progress then we started hearing, 'sorry but we can only work with non-profits'. So I researched becoming a non-profit.  When I was creating this wonderful little 4 year updateable id kit I wanted it to have in it everything I'd want if I was buying it for myself.  I did no actual research on what was out there and didn't even really know what authorities asked when kids went missing, but having several children and grandchildren, I had a pretty good idea.  As it turned out, I had everything in it that is needed when a search is started for a missing or lost child. 

After several weeks I had completed the California state non-profit application.  We were thrilled when it came back immediately with no restrictions of any kind.  We had a wonderful Board of Directors and everything in place to begin helping to protect and educate kids and families. 

Those first few years were challenging.  Don kept his job and I still tutored on the side to keep finances going.  Many months we loaned the organization money to meet its mission expenses.  During that time I lost my father (1998) and in 2000 my younger brother passed away.  Our tally of grandchildren had grown and we were being asked more and more to do workshops on child safety.  We were interviewed periodically by the locat tv stations when a child was missing or a sexual predator was arrested.  It kept our name out there. In 1999 I created our official safenetwork.org website to assist in promoting our ID kits and our mission. 

Major changes were beginning to take place.  When my brother died in order for my mother to stay in her home, my husband and I with our son, then 16, moved in with her, build a wonderful large addition to the house for her and made her life easier and happier until she quietly passed away at home in 2006.

In 2001 we had the great opportunity to sell 500 of our ID kits to a local radio station who then had us give them away at the local zoo on Mothers Day to women who came to the zoo.  It was such a big hit they bought a thousand the following year and had us do the same thing.  What we didn't know was that a woman who came through the zoo that second year was from Maryland and had shown this id kit to a friend who was the Family Advocacy Program Manager at Fort George Meade.  She was looking for a give-away ID kit that was more substantial than most of the single sheet kits out there.  She picked up the phone and ordered 600 of ours. Thus began a wonderful journey and relationship with the U.S. Army, and later the Air Force and Navy. 

Many thousands of our ID Kits began to flow through the country going to military families everywhere.  Shortly after we began this great relationship we got a call from one of Don's military contacts.  He expressed the wish that we had some kind of manual or training that we could provide because there were many outlets they had for this kind of material.  So since I had as many years of experience in classrooms, working with educational material and a strong jornalism background, along with 2 years of intense volunteer work with the American Red Cross as trainers in a wide variety of subjects I went to work.  Three months later I had my first K-12 Personal Safety Master Trainer manual.  I created our first game the Who's the Good Guy Poster Game for elementary school children and a visual aid CD.  Thus began the most important work Don and I had ever undertaken.   The mililtary began flying us al over the country to train staff and families on how to use the material and why it was so important that we teach the children not just the parents.

It wasn't long before I realized I needed to add more content and break out the manuals from one K-12 to three.  So the K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 Personal Protection Empowerment Program was born.  I added two more games and we connected with a wonderful man, David Bellman from southern California.  He had a video that shows kids how to escape from a would-be abductor using leverage not strenght.  He also included personal safety tips that fit perfectly into our program.  We've been including it ever since and now have it on DVD rather than video.

Next, Don then felt impressed to contact some local California Native American tribes to see if they would be interested in teaching their children these incredible life skills.  They loved it.  We then found ourselve traveling some to train for them. 

To date we are providing curriculm to 68 military bases (primarily Army), and 52 Native American reservations.  Our clientbase includes, churches, foster agencies, police departments, YMCA's, Salvation Army posts, and scores of other youth groups and thousands of individuals.

From that first very basic and simple KidPrints ID Kit, we now have our BabyPrints and TeenPrints ID kits, our Teen Parent, New Parent and Kid Tips Kids Keeping Private Places Private programs along with our Personal Protection Empowerment Program K-12.  We have added our Parenting Kids Away From Abuse parent guide, and our My Safe Dating Teen Journal.  There are several projects on the drawing board right now that I hope to launch in January 2010. 

The best and most recent news is that we just contracted with the California National Guard and will be hand delivering on this coming Monday 3000 of our parent guides and 1000 of our Teen Safe Dating Journals, along with 5 of our Master K-12 Personal Protection Empowerment sets.  We begin a schedule of staff and family training this month and are really excited about all the hundreds and potentially thousands of additional families, children and teens that will now be provided the skills they need to promote closer families and remove the threat of sexual abuse for all those kids.

Although this is a capsulized version of the last 15 years, I think you get the jist of what makes us "tick".  Children are our most precious gifts from God.  To let the horror of child molesation, rape, abduction and exploitation take away their childhood without doing anything to prevent it is something I can't fathom.  There are so many simple ways to to this, I hope anyone reading this blog feels that passion even just a little bit and asks, 'what can I do'.

Closing for now.
Susan aka SAFEKidsSuz