Child Advocacy Center gets grant to fund human trafficking awareness
The Monarch Place provided a good sample of the nonprofit groups in and around the city on Thursday morning, Dec. 12, where the Butler Collaborative for Families had its annual Holiday Huddle.
The event is a yearly check-in with the group, which now has around 60 members representing nonprofits and organizations that cover a variety of needs, and the event helps the group identify what gaps still need to be filled.
Emily Snow, co-vice chairwoman of the Butler Collaborative for Families, said 2024 has been a successful year for the group. For example, the collaborative strengthened its relationship with local businesses, thanks to a partnership with the Butler County Chamber of Commerce, and increased opportunities for its members to network with one another. This helped the group’s leadership to identify more community needs and potential fills for those needs.
“We just wanted to acknowledge what we’ve done, and we always look forward to your input,” Snow said.
The collaborative also awards a mini grant to at least one organization at the huddle each year, with this year’s recipient being the Children’s Advocacy Center of Butler County and its pitch to address human trafficking within Butler County.
Linda Thoma, co-chairwoman of the collaborative, said the members of the collaborative vote each year on which group should get the grant money. Two organizations applied this year and presented their pitches to the collaborative in November, and the Children’s Advocacy Center received the grant at the huddle Thursday. According to Thoma, 50% of membership funds from collaborative members goes toward the mini grant each year, so the winning proposal received $4,000, plus an extra $600 in ancillary funds.
Last year, the collaborative awarded two mini grants at the huddle thanks to matching funds from Trinity Lutheran Church. Glade Run Lutheran Services’ warming center received $4,000, and the financial literacy program received $4,000 from Trinity Lutheran Church.
Sam Taylor, child trafficking coordinator for the Children’s Advocacy Center, said the money will be used to teach people of the community about human trafficking through workshops, and funds also will go toward the needs of victims.
“It's for educating … the community about human trafficking, as well as get different resources to support victims and survivors of human trafficking,” Taylor said. “We work with VOICe if a child or adult needs a PFA, a protection from abuse order, whatever we can do to get the community to rally around and connect for the kids or adults that are affected.”
Taylor added that human trafficking comes in different forms, and can go unnoticed in some of its smaller-scale cases. However, the advocacy center is available to help any victim connect with the resources they need to recover.
“It absolutely happens in our community; it's just something people aren't able to recognize,” Taylor said. “It's really addressing this much larger issue that Butler County does have, and we really, ultimately, our goal is to combat it, to make sure it doesn't happen here.”
The grants, Thoma said, provide funding for programs that an agency may not otherwise be able to completely fund.
“Human trafficking, we don't want to hear that exists in Butler,” Thoma said. “We want to be able to support them to be able to have the tools so we can curb this in our community. It's always all about community.”
The Holiday Huddle concluded with a networking session for the agencies’ representatives. Next year will be the collaborative’s 30th anniversary, and Thoma said its leaders plan to do even more outreach, to recruit more agencies into the group to cover needs that may not even currently be known.
“We have about 60 members, which is great, we want to grow that, though,” Thoma said. “We are going to be more intentional about that, reaching out to people. That's how we serve our community, is working on those gaps and needs.”
