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March 30, 2015
Tallahassee Army
hitting the streets
to fight trafficking
By Laura Haas
Southern Spirit staff
The Salvation Army of Tallahassee,
Fla., organized a city-wide antitrafficking demonstration Feb. 26
to bring awareness and provide
educational materials to members of the
community about the growing problem
of human trafficking in Florida. More
than 50 volunteers stood on college
campuses and at intersections, passing
out 3,000 informational brochures that,
among other things, help others to
identify victims of trafficking.
Julie Smith, Tallahassee special
events and community relations
coordinator, organized the event along
with the Big Bend Coalition Against
Human Trafficking, a multi-agency
group in North Florida that works to
help victims of trafficking.
“It was very successful, we were
able to use a lot of different people who
had shown an interest in the past,”
Smith said. “We’ve had a lot of amazing
stories come out of it that let you know
that it was something worth doing. It’s
definitely here, but people just don’t
know how to recognize it. Neither did I
until I started learning.”
One volunteer, who works as a
victim advocate, was standing at an
intersection handing out brochures
when a man pulled up and told her
that there were trafficked women
in a building nearby. The volunteer
Florida ranks third in
the nation for the number
of calls received by the
National Human Trafficking
Hotline. Julie Smith, special
events and community
relations coordinator, said
that many victims come in
along the coast from other
countries and, without proper
identification and language
skills, are unable to seek help.
immediately called the sheriff’s office,
and an officer was sent to investigate.
Smith’s anti-trafficking educational
efforts began when she was hired
by The Salvation Army in 2011. She
invited THQ’s Alesia Adams to provide
training on The Salvation Army’s
anti-human trafficking work for her
own knowledge and invited partner
organizations and churches to attend.
More than 60 people came to
the workshop and many from local
churches asked Adams to come back
and provide the same training for their
congregations as well. Since then, the
Tallahassee Corps has offered seven
training sessions for community and
coalition members.
Beyond education, the command
also offers services to victims whenever
possible as a member of the coalition.
Captain Julio Da Silva and volunteers distributed educational materials about human
trafficking and talked to passersby about the problem.
“We get calls from coalition members
and victim’s advocates,” Smith said.
“Any immediate needs that we can
meet, we do help with and if they
find that they can send the v