Grant Writing

Never in a thousand years would I have signed up willingly to write a grant. To be clear, I HATED writing a master’s thesis and am so jealous that budding young therapist are no longer required to do so in order to graduate. What I came to realize this last few days as I am pouring over my passion to STOP TRAFFIC was I had fun researching and creating innovative ideas to influence social change.

In order to travel Nebraska and beyond to educate the masses about human trafficking prevalence and prevention, we need financial support. That is why I have changed my hat and assumed the role of grant writer for the week.

In the research for one grant, I discovered that not only is Lexington the number 5 hot spot in Nebraska,

Nebraska is number 4 most trafficked state in the U.S. of A. https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/human-trafficking-statistics-by-state I don’t know about you, dear reader, but this is absolutely unacceptable! I cannot stand for this and won’t rest until we rank last.

Why in the world is Nebraska (which doesn’t have the population of California or New York) higher per capita? I have some theories. Please share yours.

These are my thoughts; Nebraska is NICE. We teach our sons and daughters manners. We do not teach our children the glorious art of saying “No.” We encourage our children to disregard their personal boundaries by saying things like this; “Go to hug Aunt Bertha” even if the child obviously doesn’t want to because she has a snaggle tooth and a large growth on her cheek, not to mention her coffee breath would kill Goliath. The Nebraska child is taught to disregard their inner voice and ability to trust who is safe and who is not because we adults don’t want to offend Aunt Bertha. We teach our children not to hurt other’s feelings and to go above and beyond for others because that is the “right way” to be.

We assume we are safe because this is the GOOD LIFE. We assume nothing happens here, especially nothing as horrific as human trafficking.

I identify as a Christian and Jesus is my BFF. In fact, I want to be more like Jesus. Jesus stood for the downtrodden. He had boundaries and said ‘no.’ He was kind and loving to all, but firm when people were hurtful toward others in any sin. He said, ‘Let the children come to me and do not hinder them.’ He believed that children are our future and protected their innocent hearts. Jesus knew the world and some people in it had evil intentions. He knew horrific things happened, just read any book of the Bible to support there was human trafficking 2000 years ago and beyond, dating to the beginning of human- kind time.

When it comes to human sex trafficking and labor trafficking, could Nebraskans be more like Jesus? Please leave your comments below, I look forward to dialog with you.