Why We Started #UNMUTED

Florida ranks #3 in the nation for human trafficking cases. Jacksonville leads the state in online commercial sex ad activity. I've said those numbers out loud more times than I can count, and they still stop me every time, because they aren't just statistics to me. They're women I have sat across from. They're a version of my own story, still happening, right now, in neighborhoods a few miles from where I live.

She Was Made for More Ministry started because I couldn't reconcile those two things: how much need there was in my own community, and how quiet everyone still was about it. Trafficking thrives in silence. It needs rooms where no one asks questions, families where no one talks about it, churches where it feels too dark a subject for a Sunday. So we decided to be loud instead.

That's where #UNMUTED comes from. A few times a year, we bring survivors, advocates, and local partner ministries into one room, share my testimony alongside theirs, and hand people concrete ways to actually get involved, not just a night that stirs your emotions and then ends.

The partner organizations we spotlight at every #UNMUTED aren't there as a formality. Groups like RE:threaded, Hadassah's Hope, and the Northeast Florida Human Trafficking Coalition are doing the unglamorous, day-to-day work of getting survivors out and walking with them through years of restoration. Part of #UNMUTED's job is making sure the people in that room know these organizations exist, and know exactly how to show up for them, with time, with resources, with prayer.

If you've never been to one of our nights, here's my invitation: come be in the room. Bring someone who needs to hear it. Breaking the silence works better when it isn't just one voice doing it alone.