Hey Everyone!
Hope your week is going well. It’s midterm time at Hope
College so the library is full of students studying today. I just finished with
my piano midterm today and really enjoyed playing some new music. I memorized “Amazing
Grace” and cannot get it stuck out of my head, but I think that is a good song
to have playing in my head.
This weekend I attended the Songs Against Slavery Benefit
Concert at Hope. Three bands performed from Hope and a speaker from the Manasseh Project
shared about human sex trafficking happening in West Michigan. Hope students organized the event to create awareness for human sex trafficking, and to raise money
for organizations that are trying to end it.
The mission of Songs Against Slavery is to awaken hearts to
the injustice of sex trafficking through benefit concerts. SAS empowers,
equips, and offers resources to help others run concerts as a way to fundraise
and walk along side established non-profits who are fighting sex trafficking.
We provide promotional tools, products, speakers, musical artists, and mentors
as reliable options to help further one’s concert. The partners, who run the
concerts, book the venue, provide one musical act (opening or headliner), and
decide which non-profit fighting sex trafficking the money will go too. All
partners and concert details have to be approved by SAS to ensure the concert’s
success. SAS will keep 20% of all proceeds for administrative costs in order to
run more concerts-this way, more awareness can be spread. Ultimately, the
heart behind SAS is to shine Christ’s light and put an end to sex trafficking,
because He said so. (Isaiah 58: 6-12)
Songs Against Slavery gave some of the proceeds of their
concert to the Manasseh Project. It was incredible to see how people are using
their talents to help raise awareness for their passion. Grace attends Hope,
and is the co-founder of Songs Against Slavery. She is passionate about helping
victims in the United States and uses her own music to reach out to people.
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I encourage you to check out these organizations’ websites
to learn more about human sex trafficking happening in the United States. Attending
the concert at Hope gave students a chance to hear what is occurring so close
to us. Last week Hope College had trafficking awareness week. Every day Hope sponsored a different event (speakers, films, presentations) for people on campus and in the community to learn about the human trafficking occurring around the world. I enjoyed attending some of the events and would strongly recommend it for people to attend next year!
Have a great week,
Colleen
