People clutching baggies of red sand hunched over the sidewalk outside The Caring Place in Cleveland, Tennessee, on Wednesday morning, spreading the sand on the ground as a symbol of the intention to stop victims of human trafficking from falling through the cracks.
Participants said they hoped the symbolism helps raise awareness about trafficking in southeastern Tennessee.
Reports of human trafficking have risen in the state over the past few years, according to a report from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
Part of that may be caused by increasing awareness of trafficking in general, according to the TBI. Arrests haven't risen at the same rate as reports, the report showed.
Corinne Freeman, executive director of The Caring Place, said the center has served more than 1,200 families with food, clothing and social support since opening in April.
"A lot of our neighbors, they are victims of human trafficking, and they are victims of predators who are taking advantages of them," Freeman told the crowd gathered Wednesday, "making them work without wages, making them give away pieces of themselves in order to survive."
Sarah McKinnis, CEO of the event's host WillowBend Farms, used her red sand to write "ARE YOU AWAKE?" on the sidewalk.
That phrase can be texted to the organization's hotline, McKinnis said, as a way to ask for help in case a victim's phone is being monitored.
"They could be texting a friend," she said.
WillowBend Farms offers transitional housing and vocational programs and served 221 trafficking survivors last year, McKinnis said in a phone call before Wednesday's event. As of this year, it has seen more than 1,000 clients since opening in 2017, she said.
Trafficking doesn't always look how some people may imagine it, she and other advocates said Wednesday.
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"You think of trafficking as being, you know, girls being forced out on the street," Ashley Newman, an advocate supervisor with Court Appointed Special Advocates of Bradley and Polk Counties, said at the event. "But it's also, you know, you may have a parent who can't pay the rent ... You think it doesn't go on around here, but it does."
Nationally, around 88% of trafficking victims have a prior relationship with their trafficker, either in real life or online, McKinnis said. Sometimes, the trafficker is a member of the victim's own family.
Advocates mainly talked about sex trafficking, though many said forced labor for other kinds of trafficking victims is starting to get more attention in Tennessee. The state's human trafficking advisory committee is working on initiatives to help identify labor trafficking, McKinnis, who sits on the committee, said.
"We do know that it's taking place," McKinnis said.
WillowBend Farms has received state and federal money in the past but is mainly funded privately, McKinnis said.
Many of its cases are referred from law enforcement or from other nonprofit organizations in the area, she said.
Contact Ellen Gerst at egerst@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6319.