Today we’d like to introduce you to Alli Neal.
Hi Alli, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Honestly, Revved Up Kids was nothing less than a clear call from God during a point of transition in my life. I had been a stay-at-home mom for 15 years; I ran the house, and my husband worked to afford the family a comfortable lifestyle. When his company was sold in late 2008, he was let go. This was the height of the last unemployment recession, and I decided my best course of action was to pray to God for guidance for the next chapter of our lives. God gave me Revved Up Kids as the answer. I had no previous experience or knowledge about sexual abuse, and I named the company Revved Up Kids because what happened to me can only be explained as a revelation. In the summer of 2010, after 16 months of self-educating and taking steps to form a business around this call, Revved Up Kids opened its doors with a single prevention training program for young children and their parents. The program taught personal safety and self-defense. Fast forward 13 years later, we now offer more than 20 different training formats addressing sexual abuse, exploitation, and trafficking prevention in real life and online for children, teens, parents, and youth-serving organizations.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road has hardly been smooth! For the first three years, we were incorporated as a for-profit LLC. Things were moving in the right direction, but in the third year, we received more and more calls from groups who were serving children and teens in underserved communities, and they couldn’t afford to pay us for training. We made the decision in early 2014 to reincorporate as a nonprofit, and during that reincorporation period, we lost a lot of momentum. Then from late 2014 through 2019, we were experiencing explosive growth…everything seemed to be pointing in the right direction, and we were so excited for the future of Revved Up Kids. And then COVID. We quickly realized that when your model is to teach children in small groups in person, and the entire world shuts down, you can no longer fulfill your mission! During the shutdown, we worked with our Board to develop alternative delivery methods. We took several of our in-person training programs and produced them into video-on-demand learning series; we took several of our teen and adult programs and began to deliver them via Zoom. We struggled for almost three years as schools and after-school programs (our primary training partners) worked to overcome their COVID-related challenges. For purposes of comparison to illustrate how badly we were impacted, in our fiscal 2019, we trained approximately 25,000 children and teens, and in our fiscal 2021, we trained fewer than 600. But our doors are still open, we are still equipping children and teens, and we are on the road to recovery.
We’ve been impressed with Revved Up Kids, Inc., but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Revved Up Kids is a 501c3 nonprofit on a mission to protect children and teens from sexual abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. We accomplish our mission by providing exceptional prevention training programs for children and teens, for parents and caregivers, and for youth-serving organizations. Revved Up Kids is serving a niche need….there are a number of exemplary organizations that focus on the rescue and restoration of victims. Revved Up Kids is the only Atlanta-based nonprofit whose sole focus is preventing sexual abuse from occurring. Our training programs are evidence-based and evidence-informed, and highly acclaimed by educators, physicians and mental health experts, public safety officials, and parents.
We provide our training in partnership with youth-serving nonprofits, schools, police agencies, teams, clubs, scouts, and private groups throughout metro Atlanta and North Georgia. Groups outside our service area can take advantage of our virtual and video-on-demand programs.
We are so proud of the impact that our work is having on Atlanta’s children and teens. Children are being saved from their abusers as a result of our training…when we equip them with a response, when we expose the lies that their abusers feed them when we remove the fear, they are emboldened to disclose. When we equip teen girls to defend themselves against an attacker, to recognize red flags in their dating relationships, and to understand how traffickers approach and groom potential victims, we are saving lives!
Revved Up Kids charges tuition when groups can afford to pay us, but we believe that no child should be denied this important training due to an inability to pay, so we work tirelessly to raise funds through grant writing, individual donations, and fundraising events that enable us to provide free training for economically disadvantaged and high-risk groups. Our Board has set a strategic goal that every time a group pays tuition for training, we provide free training for at least one other group. For the past two years, 2/3 of our training has been provided at no charge to the groups.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
My childhood was idyllic by most people’s standards; I grew up in a suburb of Detroit with a mom and a dad, and two siblings. We were not wealthy, but we were comfortable. When I founded Revved Up Kids, I was required to dig deep into childhood trauma and the ripple effect of damage it causes across communities. As a child, the worst “trauma” I endured was being bullied a little bit because I looked different (red hair and freckles) and being left out by my peers… hardly worth mentioning. It’s been simultaneously fascinating and discouraging to learn that the vast majority of children experience significant trauma in their formative years….not always sexual trauma, but the trauma that comes from having dysfunction in their families (incarcerated parent, substance abuse by adults in the family, witnessing domestic violence, etc.). I was certainly blessed to go to sleep each night in a home where there was none of that, in a home where I didn’t fear hearing gunfire, in a home where there was food in the refrigerator, toys to play with, and a bed to sleep on at night. My parents weren’t perfect, but they came closer than most!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://revvedupkids.org
- Instagram: @revvedupkids
- Facebook: @revvedupkids
- Linkedin: @revved-up-kids-inc
- Twitter: @revvedupkids
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/revvedupkids
Image Credits
All photos were taken by Revved Up Kids
