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It's Been Good, Give-Back Campaign

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This is a campaign to raise funds for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) , who were highly instrumental in the search and rescue of my son, Ozan.

 
OUR STORY.
In 2012, after an Istanbul court decision granted to me full custody my son Ozan, his Turkish family kidnapped him. Shuttled around Istanbul in secret, kept out of school to evade the police, Ozan was isolated from all things that resembled normal life. He was allowed to see very few friends and kept mostly indoors for fear of being discovered. To keep him calm, his familial captors made a game of their deceit, even when the police would arrive at the door searching for him. Fortunately, his family had taught him basic reading and math lessons, but they were not skilled educators. In 2016, when he arrived in the US at 10 years of age, he hadn’t developed age appropriate social skills, critical or abstract thinking. He had been kept in the dark about current events, history and civic structures. The good news is that he is showing signs of healing.

Statistics from the NCMEC site: There has been improvement in the missing duration of international cases over the past decade. In 2008, international abductions had a mean missing duration of nearly 2 years (22 months). By 2017, they had a mean missing duration of 9 months. Between 2008 and 2017 there were 4,213 cases with an international component. Only 1.9% of all children involved in domestic family abductions had cases that remained unresolved. In comparison, children involved in international family abductions had a much higher percentage of unresolved cases (14.4%).

My son was missing for four and a half years.

In 2016, Ozan reentered my life confused and traumatized. We’ve been fortunate to have a competent therapist and excellent school support here in Evanston, Illinois. In many ways he is thriving in spite of this history. Placed in ESL classes from the outset, he is steadily fighting his way into regular classes. His grades have been remarkably stellar. Currently he is in eighth grade and already registered for high school. As the workload is proving to be a challenge for him, the reality of the enormity of his loss weighs in. As Ozan grows, learns and heals, new layers of trauma are steadily revealed.

Someone in my lawyer’s office who specialized in family law suggested I get in touch with the National Council for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). At that point, I was frantically trying everything for example, Ozan had already been registered with Interpol and the Hague. Things really started to move with pressure from NCMEC. They were very attentive to the details of the case, staying in regular contact with the Turkish police and all related agencies. They stayed in touch with me too, calling periodically to receive updates and simply to ask how I was doing.

The song, It's Been Good was inspired from a conversation between myself and my son Ozan's terminally ill mother who in anticipation of resistance from her family, expressed in writing her wish that I raise our son, after her death. But her wish was turned on its head when her family kidnapped him, launching a nation-wide search. The near five-year saga concluded with a dramatic 2016 police rescue in a resort town in southern Turkey.

I wrote It’s Been Good as a celebration of our reunion and in gratitude to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children for playing a pivotal role in the rescue of Ozan.

Sixty (60%) of your donation will go to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, a private, non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation whose mission is to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization.

Forty (40%) of your donation will go towards:

1. A college fund for Ozan (20%)

2. Giving Ozan access to the extra help he needs, counseling fees, extra tutoring. (10%)

3. Partial recuperation of legal and travel costs, recording production costs. (10%)

Each person who donates gets a download of the song as a thank you gift directly from me. This song is available only by way of a donation to NCMEC through my Gofundme campaign:

Go to donmixon.com  for more information and eventually other videos.

The 2020 release party/concert is planned for August 28th, 2020: the anniversary of the date in 2016 when Ozan came to America. This date will be the close of the fundraiser. After that, the recording will be available on all platforms.

 
Donation levels
 
$20 - $49
Download of the song, It’s Been Good.
  
$50 - $99
Download of the song, It’s Been Good,
- 2 free tickets to the 2020 Release Concert.
 
$100 - $250
Download of the song, It’s Been Good.
- 2 free tickets to the 2020 Release Concert.
- A download of my Istanbul recording, Culmination
 
$250 - $500
Download of the song, It’s Been Good.
- CD download of my Istanbul recording, Culmination.
- VIP tickets for a party of 4 to the 2020 release concert.
  
BIOGRAPHY
Donovan Mixon is one of those ambidextrous, crossover artists. He has been a faculty member of Berklee College of Music, won an NEA grant for jazz composition, taught and performed from the USA and Canada to Istanbul, Budapest, Shanghai and Singapore. His four released recordings feature prominent musicians from Boston, Milan and Turkey. He’s also had the honor to be featured on Free With Lee, a Philology Records release for the great alto saxophonist Lee Konitz.

He also a writer of short stories and more recently, longer works.  Ahgottahandleonit, his first novel published by Cinco Puntos Press in 2017 has been honored with four prominent book awards.

donmixon.com 
donovanmixonwriter.com
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Donations 

  • Lou Kovitz
    • $100 
    • 4 yrs
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Organizer

Donovan Mixon
Organizer
Evanston, IL

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