Featuring – Russ Tuttle Founder of The Stop Trafficking Project

Russ grew up for much of his childhood and teenage years in India before returning to the United States for college.  He saw firsthand, children deprived of their childhood, living in abject poverty, homeless, working as child laborers, and sold…their lives without hope.  He recalls a time when he gave a young beggar boy five new outfits and two new pairs of shoes.  It was a hand-up rather than a handout.  Within three months, the boy had disappeared from the street corner where Russ had seen him begging every day.  Russ later learned that the boy had gone back to school.  His life had been turned around; he had escaped a life of bondage and was no longer begging for money that adults would take from him.  In Russ’ formative years, these experiences instilled in him the drive to serve those who are unable to help themselves, for those suffering injustice.

As an adult, he also began to realize that the sex trafficking of children was not just a tragedy happening in other countries; it was a present and growing evil taking place in the United States.  He became aware of an American federal law that protects American children on American soil…against the crime of domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST).

He uses his strengths in communication, leadership, team development, and compassion to end domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) before it starts by disrupting the exploitation of vulnerability.  Russ serves The Stop Trafficking Project® as the visionary and primary communicator, and he is the creator and director of BeAlert® Student Assemblies, which is the prevention and awareness strategy of The Stop Trafficking Project®.  In addition to the BeAlert® Student Assemblies, he regularly provides professional training for law enforcement agencies, hospitals and clinics, school board associations, school administrators and staff, and various coalitions.  Russ has more than three decades of service in the not-for-profit world.