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June 11, 2023 12 mins
Gracehaven's Erin and Sara explains about Gracehaven, a safe house for child sex-traffic survivors, fundraising event.
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Episode Transcript

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(00:00):
All right, more guests in studio. One is a complete familiar face and
the other thing we're talking about MICHAELAAnd I can't believe I'm the only one
out of us four in here thatthought of over the Hedge, the movie.
You remember that movie? No youdon't remember, I don't know.
I do know. I have twosmall boys, so they're eight in ten.
When did that was hilarious? TheHedge? Yeah, these little animals

(00:24):
that would go over the hedge,which was a neighborhood, like the suburban
part. And they missed this one. They were like eating, Oh,
your boys would love it. I'llfind it. Manny find Manny the squirre
nanny that okay, just look atit. Anyway, we're talking about an
event called over the Edge, nothedge, but hedge, and it has
completely different meaning than this movie.Did it does? Aaron tatester House and

(00:46):
don'tor relations director for Grace Haven SarahTate not related to each other, which
is funny in itself. All right, are in studio today and Aaron's an
old friend from Channel four. Sowelcome, lady, thank you, thank
you for having us. I thinkbefore we start, Aaron has such a
great story to share of how youwent from Channel four over to Grace Haven,
because we talk about on the showa lot things happen for a reason,

(01:07):
and I think this was magnificent.Yeah. Absolutely, So it hit
me that fifteen years ago this spring, my very last story with NBC four
was interviewing the original founder of GraceHaven before the house, the first safe
house ever opened. So that's amazingto me to be able to come back
now fifteen years later on this sideof things promoting over the edge and I'm

(01:34):
learning more about Grace Haven. Ifollowed them over the years, and now
I have this great privilege of beingsomewhat in promotions and working with Sarah.
Sarah, how long have you beenwith It's not just Grace Haven, obviously
you can tell a little bit moreabout the connection there. Yeah. So
I started out in as a volunteerat Central Ohio Youth for Christ. I
have been volunteering as for the teenMom program for fifteen years and was on

(02:00):
the board for a bit, andthen I was my youngest was going back
to school and they just offered mea job and I just feel so blessed
to be working with all the youththat youth for Christ serves. So connect
the dots for us with Grace Havenand Youth for Christ because Grace Haven,
same as you, Aaron knew,that is building that first house for women
who had been trafficked. So Sarah, tell me a little bit about how

(02:22):
Youth for Christ is involved now andwhat the full Grace Haven spectrum looks like
in terms of support. Yeah.So Grace Haven has been around since two
thousand and eight under doctor Jeff Barrowswhere he started that program. And in
twenty fourteen they were financially having anissue and it is very hard to open
up a residential facility for youth,so much red tape, so many things

(02:46):
have to dots have to be connectedthat were really hard to connect, and
so Grace Haven never opened up theirresidential home. They came to Youth for
Christ when I was on the boardand asked if we would we serve youth.
Youth for Christ serves youth eleven tonineteen years old that are at risk
or you know, needing extra care. And it just was a fit because

(03:09):
worse, Grace Haven was serving youththat had been trafficked. So they came
to us and asked, you know, they were financially in trouble, and
someone had given us a gift andwe were able to use that gift to
put Grace Haven under the Youth forChrist umbrella. And so that is how
we started serving these girls. Werethat term at risk so much in society.

(03:30):
I get down for what it reallydoes mean. And and I also
want you to tackle on trafficking.You know, we talk about girls being
sex trafficked, how common it isin Central Ohio because people don't really think
it exists here. Yeah, Iwish it didn't. And we say at
risk, and that is a termthat is probably old and I shouldn't use

(03:51):
it, but it's a term thatwe've used. We reached kids where they
are and right now, with theworld the way it is, there's a
lot of hurting kids out there inneed of extra support and extra care.
And so that's what it is.It's kids wherever they are. We reach
kids that are incarcerated, so wego into all the detention centers in eight

(04:11):
counties. We serve kids in innercity and also in the suburbs, and
all of those kids are really havingthe same kinds of struggle. You know,
they don't know who they are,they don't know how they belong.
They don't know, you know,just different things and youth for Christ.
It wants to help guide kids tothe bigger purpose that they have, the

(04:33):
one that God has from honestly,And you can be trafficked Aaron right,
by a boyfriend. You can bettrafficked by a friend. They're making money
off sex, yeah right, yeah, because I think a lot of people
think about it differently in many andI've had this conversation on the show a
couple of times, but we can'treiterate enough. This is happening in your
backyard. Oh it's the girl nextdoor. I mean it's boys, not

(04:56):
just girls. It's not a certaindemographic, it's everywhere. And we actually
had one of our prevention education specialistsand i'll say an affluent suburb recently speaking
to all of the health classes allday long. Unmasking the grooming process is
the title of her speech. Becauseyou know, we're all susceptible to believing

(05:20):
things. Maybe all this older boyfriendin quotes right is giving me these these
I don't know, gifts and things, and one thing leads to another end
before you realize that you're in avery dangerous situation and you feel like you
can't get out of that, andthat's not true. I mean, in

(05:41):
addition to Grace Haven and you know, and Youth for Christ, there's some
wonderful organizations that are doing some amazingwork all over the state. But Grace
Haven is specific to children and survivorsof child sex trafficking and those who are
at risk. So I think that'sthe distinction. Sarah. You can add
to that. We are the onlyresidential care for a youth in the state

(06:03):
of Ohio. Only only there hasto be so many success stories too.
I think when most people think ofsex trafficking, they think of like the
movie Taken It. It's the extremeexamples, but that's not the everyday occurrence
that happens. And like Aaron,you are just describing to us, the
success stories are out there, andbecause of organizations like yours, you're giving

(06:27):
girls another chance to live their lifeagain, kind of the start over,
right, how to be a kidagain? Yeah, they never really had
a chance to be a kid,honestly, and unfortunately, what we've discovered
is that ninety five percent of kidsthat are trafficked are trafficked by someone they
know of that ninety five percent,sixty percent is a family member, and

(06:48):
of that sixty percent, fifty percentis a mom. So it's just startbreaking.
It has become a family of stating. Yeah, I mean we're all
moms here, so yeah, youjust can't imagine, right, I can't
imagine. And and is it becauseand not making excuses? Are they are
they trying to survive and they're tryingto get money off this trafficking situation for

(07:11):
food? It is definitely a moneymaker. Um. I believe that. The
last statistics I heard that was youcan you can make a hundred thousand dollars
off of one girl in a year. So if you imagine these traffickers have
ten girls, they're making a lotof money. But going back to Mindy's
point, the success stories, Yeah, at we call it um see the

(07:36):
story or be the story. Wehave these different events that we do throughout
the year and invite people into hearthose success stories too. I think that's
really important. I mean, we'reall from the news business here, and
so sometimes it's hard not to feelcynical or jaded, right, um,
but we need to focus on thosereally positive stories of those girls who get

(08:00):
out right and maybe you can tella little bit of full caller Casey.
She's twenty now, but she sharedher Grace Haven story of when she first
came in and she's like, Idon't have a problem. You know,
she really felt le realized that shewas even being trafficked. It was a
boyfriend's situation, which that's the boyfriendpimp where he acts like he cares about

(08:22):
her and loves her, but hehas probably several on the side just like
her and just takes advantage and exploitsher for this, And she had no
idea that this was happening, andshe became actually part of the process where
she would find other girls and bringthem in as well. So you know,
where we tell our kids to watchout for men that might do this,

(08:46):
they've they've recruited women to do thistoo. But she is a great
success story and she knows what's happenedto her after being at Grace Haven and
knows how much she was loved,and she is leading a normal life now
and happy. But when you arevulnerable, and I imagine a lot of
these girls probably come from family lifeor situations where they're not getting a lot
of attention, where they're not gettinga lot of love, and then when

(09:07):
someone's giving them what they desire,you're going to do anything to maybe keep
them around. And maybe that's howa lot of this starts. So Over
the Edge is kind of a bigI shouldn't say kind of big over the
Edge, but it's a great fundraiser, so you guys can keep doing what
you're doing and provide the resources thatare needed for these girls exactly. Over

(09:31):
the Edge is absolutely one of thefunnest things I've been involved in. This
is our eighth year. We aresuper excited about it. It's it's repelling
down a three hundred and thirty footbuilding the Chase Towers downtown. It is
fun. I said, wait aminute when I signed on, I'm like,
is this part of the job ordefinitely a part of the Now I'm
getting twenty six stories. It's onlytwenty six stories only. It is a

(09:54):
blast adventure. It's absolutely so muchfun. Yeah, she's done it how
anytimes? Like Sarah? Okay twice? And so what do people do they
raise money to be able to goover the Edge? Yeah, it's a
crowdfunding situation. You go to oursite, you register right now, we're
running a promotion that if you registerit's ten dollars, So it's like right
now, right now, it's onehundred dollars registrations from motel for ten and

(10:18):
then you ask all your friends,you put it out what you're doing,
and I guarantee you most of yourfriends will be like, yes, I
want to see this happen and doit, yes and help support you.
So and there are fun ways thatwe can really engage people. Right now,
we're doing that signing bonus if youwill, of a ten dollar discounted

(10:39):
past to Vertical Adventures. So ifpeople feel like they want to get some
practice in before Friday, you know, one, it's not too late to
sign up to repel with us.We still have about twenty spots left and
one hundred and twenty thousand dollars toraise, so we are a little bit
up against a deadline. But atthe same time, people are free to
fundraise to about the summer. Andlike Sarah said, it's while intimidating maybe

(11:03):
at first, whether it's the heightfactor or the financial factor, really it's
quite quite doable. What fun,Yeah, it is fun. But what
we say about this event is thefear that you feel doesn't compare to the
fear that these kids feel. Andso can you overcome that? Just thinking
about these kids that we serve.We are up against a break and time

(11:26):
flu talking to you group, andI loved having you in Studiento. MICHAELA
does too. This is right upMichaela's alley. Where can people get more
information? So in case maybe theywant to be one of the twenty that
you want to repel down exactly,you can go to www dot grace Haven
over the Edge dot com, graceHaven over the Edge dot com. Sarah

(11:48):
and Aaron, we could talk toyou for a while longer. Thank you
for sharing some really poignant stories though, and I hope you get those twenty
in the next few days. Yeah, me too. And anyone who wants
to support us, maybe not jumpingoff a perfectly good building, can go
to Raising Kne tomorrow. We havea fundraiser. If if I'm allowed to
say that from eleven am to ninepm. The location right there at Olan
Tanji River Road, um close towhere we used to work at NBC four.

(12:09):
Why wouldn't you allow to say that? Okay, from the building,
they were shouted from the rooftops fromthe Chase Tower, Chase Tower, Oland,
Tangy River Road canes eleven to ninetomorrow. Yes, the one that's
close to Ackerman or Doddridge. Yougot it all day. I just mentioned
Grace Haven will do. Yeah,ladies, thank you so much. This
is what matters on six ten WTVN
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