Dawn Roe and Girl Vow’s dedicated members are dedicated to reconnecting missing girls with their families.
The ordinary New Yorker may not recognize the faces or names of thousands of missing people, but the Bronx-based group founded in 2015 tries to meet the needs of at-risk adolescents who go missing according to (source)
“Enough already. We must alter the story. “We need to change our course in terms of not adequately addressing the issues surrounding missing females,” Roe added.
Roe’s ties to this topic derive from her own battles with depression and suicidal ideation. She ran away when she was younger and wants to devote her life’s work to preventing at-risk adolescents from making the same mistakes she did.
While she’s already helped change the course of troublesome young New Yorkers who’ve returned home to their families, she’s also continually working against the clock to discover those who haven’t gone home yet.
“We become the boots on the ground that the NYPD cannot,” Roe explained. “We often don’t want to connect with the NYPD in our community, which makes the work a little more difficult.”
Scarlett Rivera and Mariah Sanchez went missing in April 2022, according to reports. Enrique, Scarlett’s father, and Mariah’s foster care dad claim that a no-show to an after-school meetup resulted in hours of radio silence.
The father promptly took to social media, where he attracted the notice of Dawn Roe and Girl Vow. They assisted him in tapping into a network of the teen’s relationships, providing ACS, police, and the bounty hunter with a point of reference. After searching in New Jersey and the five boroughs, Scarlett’s phone call from Poughkeepsie led to her safe homecoming.
“I’m better… “I regret what I did, and I realized there was no reason for me to go,” Scarlett added.
She is now in her final year of middle school, and while Roe continues to assist in the search for other missing girls, that family is relieved after a joyful ending to a horrible situation.