Restore Year End Letter 2010
Dear Friends,
For Ms. L, moving into the Restore Safe House—a beautiful home with lots of natural light, a backyard, good food, and rent-free—seemed like a dream that was too good to be true. So good that it took the Restore staff two weeks to convince her to move in, and become Restore’s first safe house client. For Ms. L, being lied to and offered empty promises had become a way of life. She refused to believe that the house existed. Truthfully, in many ways, it was too good to be true for me as well.
Restore has come a long way in two years, from a time when it was just an idea with a great deal of planning work ahead. And though we still have our work cut out for us, we are serving clients and educating the community on sex trafficking daily. We received our first client from Queens Criminal Court in March 2009, and since then, our team has provided education, counseling, and case management services (such as ESL, job training, and court advocacy) to over 100 women.
In addition, thanks to the support of our friends we held two successful events last year, the Restore Gala and the Brick by Brick Campaign, raising over a quarter of a million dollars, which enabled us to open New York City’s first long-term safe house for foreign-born survivors of sex trafficking. Our organization was highlighted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Change.org.
What a HUGELY successful year! And we have you, our friends, to be thankful for in joining us in the journey.
Video: Restore 2011 (NYE Party), safe house update, & Pepsi Refresh!
Don’t forget to buy your tickets for the Restore 2011 New Year’s Eve bash! Tickets are selling out quickly, and we haven’t even announced our [exciting] surprise! Stay tuned for that announcement. In the meantime, grab a ticket & start planning your outfit. Theme: Hollywood Glamour.
We have our first client moving into the safe house Tuesday (tomorrow)! We’re so excited and we want to thank everyone for the support you’ve shown. It’s all becoming a reality, folks! We’ll be sure to keep you posted on the safe house too.
Starting December 1st, we’ll be entering the Pepsi Refresh challenge for a $250,000 grant. For those of you who don’t know what the Pepsi Refresh Project is: Each month, Pepsi gives out $1.3 million dollars in smaller grant amounts to various projects across America; voters can vote for a project every day for that month and the winner gets the grant amount. We’re putting in for a $250,000 grant so be sure to vote for us every day! We’ll keep you posted on that as well.
Thanks again for being awesome supporters and we can’t wait to tell you more surprises and updates in the coming weeks! Have a great Thanksgiving!
End of October: WSJ & Safehouse!
We’re so excited to say that we’ve been featured in the Wall Street Journal and since then have been getting more press. This has been great in spreading awareness of the issue of trafficking in NYC. We truly appreciate all the support, comments, and even questions that we’ve been getting and we hope that the education and awareness building continues.
Also, we’re excited to say that we are officially opening up the new safe house — the first of its kind in NYC — and will be taking in women starting next week. The residential program will include counseling, optional activities such as yoga, cooking classes, gardening, art work, etc., as well as job skills training. Thanks, everyone, for being a part of this and for helping to bring safety and comfort to these women.
Brick by Brick Campaign is a SUCCESS!
We launched the Brick by Brick Campaign on Sunday, August 22. Between then and now – we not only signed a two-year lease on a safe house, but together we raised $50,000 of our matching goal! We did it!
All of the money raised from Brick by Brick will directly support the funding of NYC’s first ever long-term safe house for international survivors of sex trafficking.
Thank you for your dedication. Thank you for your support. Thank you for contributing directly to the healing and recovery of survivors of sexual slavery in NYC.
