Toni Clark

Toni Clark was deeply disturbed to learn about the prevalence of child abuse in Greenville and the Upstate. “Greenville has become my family’s home, and the more I learned about it (child abuse), the more convinced I became that someone needed to do something to stop it,” Toni says with conviction. Her Husband, Ken Clark, adds, “It wasn’t long before it became clear that we were that someone.” With support from Ken, his business associates and customers at Thermal Resources, and a handful of like-minded friends, Toni founded Defenders for Children (DFC). This organization aims to prevent child abuse by raising community awareness and educating the public. Toni’s family are some of her biggest supporters. Ken, Kyle, and Anna readily volunteer their time and talents for DFC. It is a continually evolving organization, launching many programs that reach different stakeholders in the community and supporting other non-profit organizations that provide services to victims of abuse. From Blankets of Hope, a program that has provided handmade blankets to over 1,300 children, to Cast Against Abuse, which took children from group homes on professional fishing excursions, and many others, DFC’s programs are varied and unique. Even so, they remain united in their purpose to provide the community with ways to support abuse victims. It's not easy keeping an organization like this running. The programs are funded by donations from the community. But even when finances for the Clark family were tight, Ken encouraged Toni to continue with DFC, and they all made the sacrifices necessary to keep the programs going and expanding. "Ken always said we are doing the right thing by helping the children," Toni says. The program that currently has Toni’s heart and the focus of DFC is their Electronic Detection K9 Project. DFC is continuously raising funds to place electronic detection K9s with law enforcement agencies to investigate crimes against children. Toni explains, “Criminals have moved away from transmitting images of child abuse and trafficking over the internet. Instead, they hide these images on storage devices such as SD cards and removable hard drives that are virtually impossible for law enforcement to locate. That’s where Electronic Detection K9s can help. They can sniff out an average of two devices per search, the ones that humans can’t find. Having those devices in hand gives law enforcement the evidence they need to prosecute these criminals.” Toni is proud to say that Defenders for Children was able to make a gift of a K9 and handler training to the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office. “Queue,” an English Labrador Retriever, is an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force officer working alongside his handler, Sergeant Michael Rainey. Queue has assisted in many searches locating hundreds of devices law enforcement would have missed. Those searches led to several arrests. Seeing these incredible results urges Toni to make this program more widely available. In response, DFC has launched a new campaign called 180 Turn-Around. The goal is to raise enough funds to place Electronic K9s throughout South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Louisiana. The southeast region of the United States. They can place a K9 in any agency throughout the United States with the help of a donor and acceptance of the Sheriff's Office. Donations of any amount are accepted, and there is even an opportunity for a company or individual to purchase and name a K9 to be placed with law enforcement. “Once donated, the K9 can work for over eight years with law enforcement. This program will bring positive results by prosecuting criminals and rescuing children for over eight years, which is amazing.” Toni Encourages each of you to do your part in protecting the children and consider donating to help place the extraordinary Electronic Detection K9s to help save children’s lives. ​ We currently have Six Electronic Detection K9s within South Carolina, and our first in Georgia was placed in 2022. Each K9 works with Law Enforcement to help with cases involving children.