Week 3:
Institute for Exploited, Trafficked and Missing Persons

July 9, 2013

This week has been nuts! But in a great way, things have really revved up in regards to my fundraising event and we have started our flagship DMAC. I have also been out and about in the city and will be leaving for two weeks to take advantage of an opportunity in Chicago.  Busy, busy, busy.

The event that I am planning has really come together this week. I heard back from the venue that I have been trying to contact for weeks and we arranged a meeting, we also included the musical guest in this meeting and it was great! It was a beautiful sunny day and my supervisor Mike and I took off about an hour early from work to meet and discuss our event.  It is official! We will be having our event at Tiger Sushi, a beautiful restaurant with an amazing patio in Uptown.  This is a huge step and after we got this figured out everything is taking off! I have so much to do in the coming weeks!

Lisa is the owner of Tiger Sushi and she is a pretty amazing lady who seems very dedicated to the causes that The Institute supports. She is allowing us access to her entire patio on August 11^th from 5 to 9 and catering the whole event in a way that will allow The Institute to make a lot of money for victims of human trafficking.

Scott Mateo is a well known musician in the area who puts together bands for various events and he has agreed to work with us.  They were both incredibly kind and our meeting was productive and fun. We all brainstormed a name/brand for the event and it is pretty great, we are calling it Eat. Dance. Be Free.  Now I am working on putting together our social media presence, the multiple rounds of mailings, the volunteer network and trying to find business sponsors. I am working with Ross Overline, a fellow intern, on the media outreach and design of the campaign and am very excited about the direction that we have chosen.  Hopefully the title and feel of the event will be a joyful celebration of freedom while raising money to help those who are not so blessed.

This week we also initiated our strategy to DMAC or Dream Maker Action Committees, this program is a volunteer outreach program that aims to keep volunteers who travel to our various locations engaged once they return and to reach out to new people who would be interested in our cause.  I spent days writing and rewriting a return letter and call to action that we have now sent out to about a hundred volunteers who have recently returned from  Antigua Guatemala, which is pretty cool.

Rebecca, another intern, and myself are also continuing to work on our upcoming presentations.   One of which is for an abolitionist group that has requested a presentation focused on our organization and the new statistics surrounding human trafficking. The other is really exciting, it is a concert dedicated to raising awareness for the issues surrounding human trafficking and we will be just one of many groups taking part in this event so it should be a great opportunity to network and learn.

I’m still loving the city and all of the cool things it has to offer, I am off on an adventure to teach at a Mock Trial Camp in Chicago for a week, so wish me luck!