Helping Children Stay Safe

GASP

With 10 grandchildren of her own, 67-year-old Fran Doll is convinced that no one is more passionate about helping kids than a grandparent. That's why she calls upon local grandparents near her home in Akron, Ohio, to work as volunteers at her nonprofit organization, Grandparents Against Sex Predators, which she founded in 2006.

"It's really unfathomable to me that children are at risk for such terrible crimes, and I wanted to do something to help, even if I just made a small impact," says Ms. Doll, who got the idea to start GASP after hearing about the case of Jessica Lundsford, a 9-year-old Florida girl who was raped and murdered by a convicted sex offender in 2005. "When I looked at my own precious grandchildren, I just kept thinking of that poor girl and I was shocked, sad and enraged."

Ms. Doll started GASP after retiring from a busy career working in administrative positions and then running a successful temporary-staffing company, all while raising six kids -- two of her own and four stepchildren. GASP works with local law-enforcement agencies to train grandparents and other volunteers how to recognize signs of potential sexual abuse and help search for missing children. GASP volunteers also watch for and report any suspicious activity in the community, fingerprint children, and conduct community education programs to teach children, educators and parents about sexual-abuse awareness and prevention.

She spends 30 to 40 hours a week directing activities and fund raising at GASP, which today has a board of directors, several special committees and more than 150 specially trained citizen volunteers. The group has fingerprinted more than 2,000 children and will soon open its doors in Alabama and other states. As far as how long she'll run GASP, Ms. Doll doesn't have a specific date in mind, but she does want to turn the day-to-day leadership of the organization over to a younger person in a few years' time.