One More Child and Mission Hill Church are teaming up for a night of advocacy, awareness, action and prayer, in-person and online, to take on the appalling everyday reality of sex trafficking that comes to the forefront during huge events like the Super Bowl.
Florida has the third-most reports of sex trafficking cases on an annual basis, and in 2019 there were 8,248 cases of sex trafficking reported nationwide to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
One More Child has been a leader in providing direct services to sex trafficking victims, including at a safe home for victims in an undisclosed location in Central Florida, since 2013. With the cameras, microphones and bright lights of the Super Bowl coming to our community, it is the perfect opportunity to share with people the exploitation of children and adults going on in our backyards and to collectively do something to combat it.
“Trafficking is a continual and escalating epidemic in our area, and COVID has only intensified the concern with children and youth being online and home more with less parental supervision,” said Christa Lynn, Executive Director of Anti-Trafficking for One More Child. “We need more than ever to work together to get victims the services they desperately need, and we need to collectively decrease the vulnerabilities of children and teens.”
The event, titled Traffick Stop: Super Bowl Edition, will feature a panel of experts from the Tampa area to discuss how sex trafficking is directly affecting our community and what we can do to oppose it. The event will take place on Jan. 27 from 6:30-7:30 p.m., in-person at Mission Hill Church, located at 10002 56th St. N in Temple Terrace, and the event will be live-streamed on One More Child’s Facebook page.
The panel will feature:
- Christa Lynn, Executive Director of Anti-Trafficking for One More Child
- Micah Washinski, Chief Operation Officer for U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking
- Tara Knouse, Director of Loft 181 at One More Child
- Keith Babb, Director of Hope Street One More Child
- Jodi Domangue, Executive Director of Single Moms for One More Child
On the day of the event, One More Child will launch a special page on its website, www.onemorechild.org/traffickstoptampa. On that page, visitors will learn how in the time it takes to watch a commerical break during the Super Bowl, they can create a Comfort Care Kit to provide necessities to victims that receive direct care in Florida.
“When you are working tirelessly to intervene quickly on behalf of individuals being sex trafficked or potentially being trafficked, it is important to have something on hand to help them see the community cares,” Lynn said. “It helps us meet an immediate need and begin to build a relationship where trust and hope can blossom long-term so boys and girls are not exploited again.”
To help meet this need, Mission Hill has agreed to provide at least 150 Comfort Care Kits as a churchwide outreach effort through people involved in its Community Groups.
One More Child has been meeting the needs of vulnerable children and struggling families since 1904, and in 2020 the organization impacted more than 300,000 children and individuals and provided more than 19 million meals to fill hungry bellies. Learn more at www.onemorechild.org.