Cry Freedom Missions provides hope, help, resources for survivors of human trafficking

GOLDSBORO — About five years ago, Beverly Weeks, CEO of Wayne Pregnancy Center, began noticing “little red flags” with some of the women who were coming to the center for pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, STD screenings, and resources. The women had no forms of identification. They had meth sores and other signs of drug addiction. During follow-up visits, they repeatedly wore the same clothes. They were frequently accompanied by men to whom they seemed to look for permission to speak before answering questions.

Troubled and curious, Weeks found herself in the position of learning more about one of these women, upon driving her home one afternoon after some follow-up testing. “Honestly, I just wanted to build a relationship with her,” Weeks recalls.

“Home” for the woman turned out to be a local hotel that was known for prostitution and drug activity. “I walked into the room and I saw the needles lying on the floor…I saw a group of men, and it was very evident through the conversation that was taking place and the conversations that she was sharing with me…that she was having to exchange sex for her drugs,” Weeks remembers. “And that just rattled me.”

That experience spurred Weeks to launch Cry Freedom Missions (CFM), a nonprofit dedicated to “reaching, rescuing, and restoring” survivors of human trafficking.

Some of the people most commonly preyed upon by traffickers, according to Weeks, include those in the LGBTQ community; children in, or just coming out of, the foster care system; people with mental illnesses; people with drug addictions; and runaways.

“It’s easy for us to judge, it’s easy for us to drive by somebody and say, ‘They put themselves in that predicament,’” says Weeks. “It’s easy for that to be our answer. [But] I’m here to tell you that we’ve got to start loving on people and meeting them right where they are and not where we think they should be.”

And that’s exactly what Cry Freedom Missions does. It meets people where they are — through street outreach, hotel outreach and jail outreach.

The organization —which began with just Weeks and Mary Ann Carmichael, but has grown to include 60 paid staff members and many volunteers — started locally, with street and hotel outreach, but has now spread statewide. Weeks says it all begins by establishing relationships, something that is accomplished by supplying people with the things they need: toiletries, clothing, pregnancy tests, toys for kids, and formula and diapers for babies.

Quickly, Weeks began to notice something about the people she was building relationships with on the streets and in the hotels. “Every time I would pick up the paper or be on social media I noticed that they were being arrested,” she says. “Drug charges. Theft charges. Criminal activity charges. Prostitution charges. And I thought, wow, what if I could continue this outreach in the jail system…It would give me an opportunity to get them away from their drug dealer or their pimp — and in many cases, the drug dealer and the pimp can be the same person — and continue the relationship.”

So she went to Wayne County Sheriff Larry Pierce and to sheriffs across the state and got permission to take CFM into the jail and prison systems, where the organization could teach classes in parenting and life skills, as well as do vocational training.

Once Weeks — and her staff members and volunteers — built relationships with these women, what then? “Women who are being sexually exploited or in stripping or in prostitution or are being trafficked in some way, I promise you that over 90 percent of them have some kind of addiction going on,” Weeks says. So the next logical step was to get them to some place where they would be safe and could be evaluated and cared for both physically and mentally.

With a little luck, a lot of persistence — and, Weeks insists, intervention from God — she acquired a 21-bed safe house, located on 10 acres in Wayne County, complete with lots of security. Freedom House, as it’s known, has a 30- to 45-day emergency care component, where a woman’s immediate needs are met, and once that period of time has passed, if she is determined to be a good fit for CFM’s long-term program, then she will be invited to stay for a year, during which time she will receive trauma counseling, life skills training, and vocational training. Upon graduating from the program, survivors are guaranteed fulltime jobs, if not with CFM, then with other Christian businesses that are partnering with CFM.

To help provide sustainability for Freedom House, and to provide training and jobs for survivors of human trafficking, Cry Freedom Missions Shoppe and Café was opened in an old theater that had been sitting vacant in downtown Goldsboro for many years. Weeks says CFM was able to purchase the building thanks to N.C. State Sen. Jim Perry and N.C. State Rep. John Bell taking an interest in the organization, leading to $250,000 being allocated to CFM from the state budget.

The old theater has been beautifully rehabbed and is a large, open, light-filled space stocked with many home décor products — such as furniture, lamps, pillows, prints, picture frames, candles, and candle holders — as well as an assortment of other items, like t-shirts, purses and journals. Several shelves display a nice selection of jewelry, some of which is survivor-made. At the back of the shop, is the café, with seating located not just in the café area, but upstairs and outdoors, as well. Some, though not all, of the employees at CFM’s shop and café are survivors of human trafficking; for those who aren’t, they do double-duty as employees and as mentors to the survivors.

In addition to the main shop, CFM has also opened another (smaller) shop just a couple of buildings away, concentrating on outdoor and garden products, and with an ice cream counter up front. This annex was opened when a donor wanted to be involved with CFM and decided to do so by renting this building to the organization at a minimal fee.

Weeks’ vision for CFM has always been to offer “wrap-around” services for survivors, everything they could possibly need to move forward with happy, healthy, productive lives, and, up to this point, she says, the “missing link” has been transitional housing — a place for the women to go once they’ve graduated from the safe house program. “Let me tell you how good God is,” she says, before going on to describe how, just a few weeks ago, she was approached out-of-the blue by a gentleman representing another nonprofit that no longer has need for a 4,000-square-foot house that is already zoned for transitional housing; the man offered this house to CFM.

CFM is now in the process of raising funds to update aspects of the building, like its air conditioning and flooring, and to purchase furniture. Plus, Weeks emphasizes, CFM has to make certain that funding will be available to cover recurring costs, such as energy and water bills, and groceries. “My big dream is have the transitional house open and functioning by October,” she says.

An important point that needs to be made is this: while CFM’s safe house — and, in the future, its transitional house — provides housing only for women, the organization does, in fact, help men who are victims of human trafficking. Weeks points out that in addition to providing these men with resources, health care, and case management, CFM will also locate programs that are set up for the long-term care of men and will arrange free transportation to those programs.

As for how the public can help in the fight against human trafficking, Weeks encourages anyone who has reason to believe they know of a human trafficking situation to call CFM’s hotline at 919-988-9262, and she recommends visiting CFM’s website at CryFreedomMissions.com to learn about opportunities for volunteering or donating.

Cry Freedom Missions Shoppe and Café is located at 111 N. Center Street in Goldsboro; the garden and outdoor shop is located at 101 N. Center Street.