Sex Trafficking in Our Own Backyard.
Paula Clapp
Leading Global Philanthropist
The project is Stolen Youth, a fundraising entity to help children and teens who have been forced into prostitution escape that life.
Clapp and her 10 partners formed Stolen Youth to raise money for Bridge Program, a pilot project for sexually exploited youth whose government and foundation funding is soon to expire.
“That’s what I’m doing in 2012,” she said, “and probably for the rest of my life.”
Bridge Program is operated by YouthCare, a Seattle-based nonprofit serving homeless and neglected minors. Stolen Youth is initially doing business as a fundraising arm of YouthCare while organizers research the group’s ongoing structure and fundraising goals, said Patty Haven Fleischmann,Clapp’s friend and one of Stolen Youth’s founding volunteers.