From Pilot Program to Statewide Standard
Educators across the country are already finding the resource.
Washington can establish the standard.
A case for investment in proving — in Everstrong’s home state — that trafficking prevention education can become the national standard, not just the Washington standard.
State
An Unfunded Mandate
Washington law now requires every student to receive trafficking prevention education before they graduate. It’s already the law — but no funding came with it. Districts are required to comply, with no curriculum, no training, and no budget to make it happen.
Everstrong closes that gap. Our Prevention Portal is free, ready to use, and already in demand — which makes this a capacity and funding problem, not a curriculum problem. With investment now, Washington can become the first state where every student in grades 7–12 receives this education as a matter of course.
At Everstrong, we believe the sexual exploitation and trafficking of children is preventable — and prevention starts with giving every student the skills to recognize risk, trust their instincts, and look out for their friends.
Figures reflect the Prevention Portal’s first six months. Estimated student reach is calculated from the enrollment educators report when they access the Portal and represents potential reach rather than confirmed lesson delivery.
The Cost of Waiting
Composite vignette drawn from educator experiences; not a specific individual or case.
Without a ready-to-use, trusted resource, prevention education gets deprioritized behind other compliance demands, delivered inconsistently from classroom to classroom, or skipped entirely. Individual teachers are left to build something from scratch, on their own time, with no training in trauma-informed practice.
Exploitation rarely begins with obvious danger. It begins with connection that feels normal — a conversation that feels like friendship, someone who seems genuinely interested. Young people who are still learning who they are, what to trust, and how to interpret attention are especially vulnerable to that dynamic, and it grows more dangerous online, where familiarity can be simulated and trust engineered. Naming worst-case scenarios doesn’t prepare a student for that moment. Recognizing what safety actually feels like, and trusting the instinct that something is off, does.
Every year without a fully resourced program is a year of students graduating without these skills — and a year of educators left to manage risks they were never trained to recognize. The mandate has already created the opening. What’s missing is the capacity to meet it.
“Fear may bring people into the room, but it doesn’t keep them there.” Christina Robins, Everstrong Board Member, speaking at Everstrong’s 2026 fundraiser
The Everstrong Prevention Portal is a free, one-stop resource of lessons, activities, and tools that help educators, families, and communities build safety, empathy, and resilience in the young people they influence. It was developed hand-in-hand with survivors, and it’s built for how real classrooms and families actually work.
It serves educators and school staff in grades 7–12, school and district administrators, parents and caregivers, counselors and coaches — and young people themselves.
What Makes Us Different
- Survivor co-designed: built with the people who understand these risks firsthand, not around them — including an active Survivor Council that continues to shape Everstrong’s direction from the inside.
- Skills-based, not fear-based: we teach agency and resilience instead of relying on fear and shock — students learn to recognize risk and act, for themselves and their friends.
- Free and ready to use: no budget, no curriculum-writing, no specialized training required — districts can begin implementing mandate-aligned prevention education immediately.
“Everstrong has the expertise, background and knowledge of the public health approach to prevention education of sex trafficking. The exercises to engage youth are great.” Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) Reviewer
The Response Has Been Immediate
Before launching publicly, we piloted the Prevention Portal with 18 teachers across 15 schools in eight Washington counties in 2025 — refining the materials on real classroom feedback before ever asking a district to adopt it statewide. The response was strong enough for the Portal to become available statewide in November 2025.
In its first six months, the Prevention Portal reached 180 educators across 26 states — an estimated 85,000 students — with no dedicated outreach budget. That kind of organic demand tells us the need is real and the resource is resonating with educators. But demand alone doesn’t put prevention lessons in front of students. Reaching students at scale means partnering with the district leaders who can bring this education into their communities.
“These lessons made a difficult topic easy to talk about. I think this was perfectly designed…. It is enough information and practice to get students thinking, but it’s not too much to overwhelm or make them feel like it just won’t end.” High School Teacher, Davenport School District
Educators in 26 states have already found and started using Everstrong’s materials on their own, with no outreach budget behind any of them — an early signal of demand that reaches well beyond these five. Washington is where we’ll establish and evaluate the model. The mandate states are the logical next step once that evaluation is complete.
A Five-Year Path to Adoption
Our path to statewide adoption runs in three phases over five years:
Year 1
Build the foundation — deepen partnerships in current districts and build the evaluation infrastructure needed to measure impact.
Years 2–3
Expand into priority regions — targeted expansion into priority counties, prioritizing districts with the least existing capacity to comply with the mandate.
Years 4–5
Achieve statewide adoption and prepare for replication — Everstrong established as the default statewide resource for trafficking prevention education in Washington, ready to inform expansion into California, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee, and to the 26 states where educators have already accessed the portal on their own.
What It Takes
- District partnerships and implementation: dedicated capacity to build genuine relationships with school district leadership and manage rollout across each new district.
- Educator training and ongoing support: hands-on training and continued support so teachers feel confident using the Portal, not just handed a login.
- Outreach and marketing: turning organic demand — 26 states downloading with no marketing spend behind it — into the awareness and relationships that convert to signed partnerships.
- Program evaluation and data infrastructure: funding to test our materials with teachers, gather real feedback, and build the data infrastructure that proves — and improves — our impact.
- Curriculum refinement and localization: keeping materials current as online risk evolves, and adapting them for specific districts, grade bands, or states as Everstrong expands.
How We’ll Measure Success
We will report against a defined set of outcomes, not activity counts:
- Number of participating districts and schools, including underserved and low-capacity districts
- Number of educators trained, and their confidence before and after training
- Number of students completing lessons
- Student prevention knowledge and help-seeking confidence, measured pre- and post-lesson
- Percentage of districts continuing implementation the following year
- Completion of a formal external evaluation
$5 Million Over Five Years
Everstrong is seeking $5 million over five years to move from early adoption to statewide implementation.
This is structured as a multi-year investment rather than a single gift because what we’re building requires consistency, not just momentum — the same partnership-building, evaluation, and infrastructure work in year three that it takes in year one.
This investment will allow us to:
- Partner with 295 Washington public school districts
- Enable 2,500 educators to teach prevention
- Equip approximately 480,000 students with prevention skills
- Build a formal evaluation and data system
- Establish the infrastructure needed for sustainable statewide adoption
District partnerships and educator training are the two largest investments here because reaching 295 districts takes sustained, in-person relationship-building and hands-on support — not a one-time email campaign. Spread across the full ask, that’s roughly $10 per student reached; a Donor Impact Menu is available on request, breaking down what a gift at any level makes possible, from a single classroom lesson to a full district launch.
| Investment Area | Amount |
|---|---|
| District partnerships and implementation | $1,250,000 |
| Educator training and ongoing support | $1,250,000 |
| Curriculum refinement and localization | $500,000 |
| Evaluation and data infrastructure | $1,000,000 |
| Outreach and marketing | $1,000,000 |
| Total Campaign Goal | $5,000,000 |
District and student figures reflect current Washington public-school data for grades 7–12, the Prevention Portal’s current focus. Educator estimates are based on anticipated district implementation and average annual student reach per educator.
Everstrong is seeking lead investors and sponsors to anchor this initiative. A lead investment of $100,000 can underwrite a regional cohort of school districts, including partnership development, educator training, implementation support, and evaluation. We’re glad to structure recognition and reporting around what matters most to you. To explore a lead gift or sponsorship, contact Jill MacCorkle at jill@everstrong.org.
Leadership Team
Everstrong runs lean by design, with a staff of four supported by an eleven-member volunteer board. This structure allows the organization to direct resources toward program delivery while building the evaluation, partnerships, and infrastructure required for responsible scale. Board members bring expertise in trafficking prosecution, survivor leadership, education, philanthropy, organizational growth, and the development of nationally recognized prevention and care programs.
Sarabeth Rees
Executive DirectorSpent her career helping Fortune 500 companies execute complex change at scale — now applying that same operating discipline to taking prevention statewide.
Tanya Fernandez
Program DirectorBuilt an anti-trafficking curriculum that reached 5,000+ students before joining Everstrong; 15+ years in violence-prevention education and nonprofit leadership.
Jill MacCorkle
External Relations DirectorRaised $12.4M in a single capital campaign before joining Everstrong — the exact scale of campaign this initiative requires. 20+ years in nonprofit development.
Kelly Metzger
Admin. Assistant & Ops CoordinatorKeeps daily operations running so program and development staff stay focused on reaching every classroom.
Board of Directors
Eleven volunteer directors — including two who have built careers prosecuting trafficking cases, two survivor leaders, and the founder of a nationally recognized survivor treatment model — govern how this investment is spent.
Ben Gauen
Chair
Meredith Bunche
Vice Chair
Renee Wallace
Secretary
Jean Lee
Treasurer
Melanie Thompson
Member
Braelah McGinnis
Member
Jessica Munoz
Member
Robin Medin
Member
Leigh Anne DeWine
Member
Hari Priya Kota
Member
Christina Robins
MemberTogether, we can make skills-based, trauma-informed trafficking prevention education a staple in every Washington classroom — equipping thousands of students with the tools to recognize risk, trust their instincts, and support each other.
We don’t think of the people who make this possible as donors. We think of you as partners helping build something that should already exist.
To discuss how your investment can help take this statewide, contact Jill MacCorkle, External Relations Director, at jill@everstrong.org.
Give Securely Online
Donor Advised Funds
Recommend a grant to Everstrong (formerly StolenYouth). Tax ID 45-4985230.
Gifts of Stock
We gratefully accept stock and appreciated securities. Contact Jill MacCorkle at jill@everstrong.org or 206-902-6463.
Qualified Charitable Distributions
If you’re 70½ or older, you can give tax-free through an IRA distribution.
Mail a Check
Everstrong, PO Box 296, Seattle, WA 98111
Thank you. Every gift helps a young person recognize risk, trust their instincts, and look out for the people around them.
