Story of Impact

“I’ve known since I was 16 years old that I wanted to work with survivors who had experienced trafficking; I’ve just known that and felt called to that. So finding the Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking was amazing – the Coalition serves both adults and kids, and I work directly with kids. The Department of Child Services will call, or a teacher will call, and alert us that there’s a child at risk for trafficking. I’ll meet with the kid one on one for what we call a counseling session, and we work either with the family or the foster care facility where the child stays, so that I can meet them where they’re most comfortable. And then we just talk, and we form a relationship.

A lot of these girls – mostly girls, thought I do have a few boys I work with – they don’t really have people in their life who they can count on. People continuously make false promises to them, and fail them. So I’m a trusted adult that steps in and says ‘Hey, you matter. You’re important. There’s hope in the world; let’s find that together.’

And the thing is, a lot of traffickers pray on the hope of their victims. They promise a better life, wonderful things, vacations, and use that hope to take advantage of them – but we do the opposite. We use their hope to empower them. Instead of promising them a perfect life, we give them the tools to decide what their best life looks like, and we help them get there.”

“I’ve had seizures since I was 12 years old, and over the past few years they had been getting worse. My doctor put me on the seizure medication Dilantin to help me get things under control, but then over a period of time I found out that when you take that medication if affects your calcium and your teeth and gums. I looked into getting dentures, like a lot of people on that medication needed to do, and to get them on my own it would’ve taken me 2 or 3 years to save up the money. But with the Epilepsy Foundation they helped me get them in about 3 months. It was fantastic, and they helped me through the entire process. Not only did they help me fix my teeth, but they comforted me and gave me a support system when I was going through everything.

I recently found out my granddaughter also gets seizures, and I told my daughter to talk to the Epilepsy Foundation for help. They have so many programs and they can help you get the medication you need and give you a community to support you. Here, look at this picture. This is my family, and they’ll tell you that this is the first time in years that I smiled in a picture. The Epilepsy Foundation didn’t just help me and support me… they gave me my smile back.”

“I first started getting involved with and volunteering with Second Harvest around the time of the Gatlinburg fires. Living in Knoxville I didn’t know how awful it really was and how much it affected the community until I went up there to pass out food. We had a tractor trailer and we were passing out bags to families that were affected, and you can’t imagine how grateful everyone was. Some people lost everything, so not having to worry about food for their family was incredible. And Second Harvest helps people like that in Knoxville, too.

Most people don’t realize that a lot of the people impacted by Second Harvest are people who work three or four jobs trying to make ends meet. They have kids, you know they’re single parent households, and they’re struggling. So Second Harvest being able to help them with food so that they can pay the electric bill or the rent so that their children have a roof over their head – being able to see that impact firsthand is amazing. This is just an awesome organization. I love everything about it, and I’m grateful that I get to hang around and see them grow and help people in our area.”

“I had always seen the Red Cross on TV, you know. The red vests, helping out communities all over the world after disasters. But I was introduced to them personally Father’s Day morning in 2018, when our apartment complex caught on fire. My eldest son ran in and said, “Mom, mom, you’ve got to get up, the apartment’s on fire!” It was so disorienting, but we got out.

We were standing out in the parking lot with all the fire trucks, just standing in our pajamas with none of our belongings, when we saw these people with red vests walking up the parking lot. I saw them talking with a couple of families so I went over, and their first question to me was, “Do you have a place to stay?” Our extended family all lives out of town, and though I work hard, I’m a working mom and I didn’t have a lot of extra resources that I could pay for an extended stay anywhere. So they asked us a few questions, and they got it set up so we could spend a week at a local hotel.

They made sure we were comfortable, they gave us gift cards that we could use for food, it was just remarkable. And I have renters’ insurance, but they only reimburse you after the fact – and a lot of people, they just don’t have the resources to spend $70, $80 a night to stay somewhere and then wait a few weeks to get reimbursed. SO the Red Cross being there to help was just incredible. Even after we were safe and home they followed up with multiple phone calls – just to make sure that we were in a safe place and things were going okay, and to see if they could assist us more. It was really just a remarkable experience.”