'95 Aggie Helping Rescue Children From Slavery

By Holly Rine ’16 

Marcy Moorhead ’95 cherishes each of the Aggie core values. However, the value of selfless service is perhaps the most significant in her life. Because of her time spent at A&M and her heart for serving others, she and husband David were able to found an international nonprofit that rescues children in India from modern-day slavery. 

Set Free Alliance was founded in the summer of 2012 following a life-changing trip to India on which David saw the need firsthand. He shared his experiences with his wife, and Marcy knew they were being called to make a difference in India.

Her first trip to India was the following March: “I was mesmerized, and my heart was left in India.” It’s stayed there ever since. Through her work with Set Free Alliance, she has impacted the lives of thousands of children in Andhra Pradesh, India.

Marcy had always felt a calling to serve. It’s a quality she feels she was born with and her natural way of expressing love, she said. She loves to give of her time in service to others.

Aggie pride runs deep in Marcy Moorhead’s family. Her father is Class of 1970 and her sister is Class of 1992.

While she was a student at Texas A&M, earning her degree in business administration, she was in Aggie Hostesses and a student worker in the athletic department. She was a year-round, full-time student, and loved every minute of her time spent on campus at A&M, she said. After graduation, she and David married and they settled in Frisco. 

Upon David’s return from India in 2012, the couple knew they needed to act. David’s father, Fenton Moorhead, had previously established a charitable foundation and was eager to help Marcy and David make a difference in India, so they moved their family to South Carolina to be near him. The three established Set Free Alliance with the help of a contact from India, Praveen Chakravarthy, and his pre-established charity and network. On choosing the name, Marcy said, “We knew it had to be an alliance of many; it couldn’t be just one entity. It had to be a partnership of many people to end child slavery in India.” 

Set Free Alliance relies on a strong network of local pastors in India to rescue children of all ages from modern-day slavery. These children endure very harsh conditions working and living in rock quarries, brothels, and sweat shops. Once the children are rescued, Set Free Alliance strives to reunite as many as possible with their families. Those who are not able to go home are given a safe place to live in the Set Free Alliance Family, food and education. 

David Moorhead, president of Set Free Alliance, waves along with some of the happy children who were rescued through the efforts of Set Free Alliance in 2015.

With the steadily increasing number of children being rescued, Set Free Alliance is building a campus to house and educate them together. Currently, the children live in apartment buildings and the churches of the local pastors who rescue them. Once the children have acclimated to their new safe and structured lives, they begin to receive vocational training in a variety of skills. The goal is to help the children become successful members of society so that once they leave Set Free Alliance, they won’t easily fall back into the cycle of poverty. Alumni of Set Free Alliance have even begun giving back to the cause. In just three years, rescued children who were positively impacted by Set Free Alliance have greatly contributed to ensuring that the cycle of modern-day slavery in India will end. 

Marcy sees a clear connection between the Aggie family and Set Free Alliance. Texas A&M “is a community of love and a community of joy and a community of family, and that is what I feel Set Free Alliance is,” she said.

Uprooting her family’s seemingly stable lifestyle and committing full-time to working for a nonprofit was a no-brainer, she said, “because serving others and making an impact in another’s life, especially for the least of these, is so much more rewarding than monetary wealth in America.” The Moorhead children, Lauren and Kyle, are also committed to their family’s mission. “This is what brings our whole family joy and fulfillment,” Marcy said.

“Your Aggie values will always be there to help you,” Marcy said.  “Always. [They] truly helped me to not be afraid to come from Frisco, Texas, to the depths of poverty in India.” 

Marcy, her mother, Linda Abshire ‘70, and her son, Kyle, proudly supporting the Aggies before an A&M football game in 2014.  

In many ways, Marcy said, her supportive and encouraging Aggie family and her time spent on campus have added to her successes of service in India. “At Texas A&M, you learn so much about integrity and about giving of yourself and helping others,” Marcy said. “If someone trips on campus, you will stop and help them up. If someone is in a food line and is short a dollar, who isn’t going to help them pay for their food?” 

Marcy also encourages others to step outside of their comfort zones and answer the calling to serve. “Don’t hold back because with your Aggie core values, [serving others] will come naturally to you. You learn so much just being an Aggie, after you graduate it stays with you; it’s natural. And if you need support, you have an Aggie Network support team on social media right there at your fingertips. No matter where you are, you have an instant network, so never let it keep you from doing what you feel is best.”