My name is Andrew Fayal. I'm a retired Navy Master EOD technician — Bronze Star with Combat "V," two tours in Ramadi. When I came home, I put the same thing I did in the field — find what's hidden, account for everyone, leave no one behind — into a mission for kids.

I founded Project Milk Carton, a 501(c)(3), to do one thing: bring transparency to child welfare and missing-children awareness. Not opinions. Receipts.

What makes us different from almost every cause you'll be asked to fund this year: we don't just talk. We build, and we show our work — all of it, in the open.

What we've actually built (go look — it's all public):

1. A 340-million-record civic-transparency database tracking child-welfare funding, grants, and missing-children data across all 50 states.
2. Two open-source software projects, free for anyone: NotesGap (a governance layer that keeps AI systems honest and auditable) and Child-Welfare Decision Chains (open logic mapping how child-welfare decisions actually get made).
3. GuardiansWatch — our public website and missing-children tools.
4. A children's book series, "Who's Holding the Light?", teaching kids to think clearly about AI — neither afraid of it nor fooled by it. Book 1 is published and free to read right now on our Substack.

And we're widening the mission to the families who protected us: we're standing up VALOR, a sister program for veterans and their families — the same transparent, fight-for-you approach, aimed at veterans' rights. When a veteran's child ends up in the system, that family gets both — and we don't leave them to face it alone.

Why I'm asking now: all of this runs on infrastructure that costs real money every month — servers, a database, a website, the tools. I've kept this nonprofit running on my disability income and stubbornness. I'm asking for help to keep the lights on — and I'm going to show you exactly where every dollar goes.

Where your money goes (the full ledger — labor is 100% volunteer, no salaries):

1. Servers & database (hosting): $170/mo
2. AI research & writing: $200/mo
3. Email & productivity: $154/mo (applying for the free nonprofit rate)
4. Mobile & field devices: $325/mo
5. Media, voice & music: $51/mo
6. Total: about $900/mo — $10,804/year. The $20,000 goal keeps every light on for roughly two years and seeds a small operating reserve, so this isn't a flash in the pan. Built to last.

This is a 501(c)(3). EIN 33-1323547. Your donation may be tax-deductible. We are veteran-founded and -run, 100% volunteer, and we publish what we do.