She had an idea, and followed it!

You start with your first invitation, and someone in the audience asks you to come to their group, and someone there asks you to their school, and the ripples multiply until you have to build a local team of Ambassadors to keep up!

As a new member of her small town Rotary Club, Pennsylvania Regional Coordinator, Megan Inghram simply had an idea to write a letter to the editor of the Rotary International magazine. She was hoping they would consider a feature article on sex trafficking and Shared Hope. She wasn’t even aware her letter had been published in the international publication until one of the local Rotarians called to tell her. She then asked her club to invest in Renting Lacy books for the local library and they agreed.

And that was the first ripple. 

Megan delivered the display of Renting Lacy books to her librarian who responded, “It seems there should be a program with this.  Do you have a presentation?” Incredulously, Megan thought, “Is this how it works? Can it really be this easy?”

At the next city council meeting, that librarian shared about the books and the upcoming Chosen showing. A local news reporter asked, “Do you really think this is a problem here?” She urged him to hear Megan’s presentation.

That was Megan’s first Chosen showing with a room full of thirty people. She was a bit nervous, and driving home realized she had never introduced herself! So she wrote a note to self – always introduce yourself first!

Later, while setting up a display in a library, a local news reporter was there to take pictures of the Rotarians presenting the books to the library. He asked Megan all about trafficking for an article he intended to write with the photo which he later published. Click here to read the news article that began the next ripple.

Megan has done great work to educate her community on sex trafficking and prepares them to combat this issue themselves!

There is a lot of work and time required of Ambassadors as they support the work of Shared Hope in communities across the nation. Regional Coordinator, Amy Ryan Rued, and her husband, Jack, work closely with the Ohio Ambassadors, and specifically Greg Pace: “Here in central Ohio we do everything we can to create speaking opportunities.

With each presentation comes a commitment of time to show up and deliver our message to those we speak with. Greg is passionate about educating and helping to prevent child sex trafficking and it is a pleasure to have him on our team.”

Greg shares how he began working with the Ohio group in 2014, which was made up of concerned friends. His decision to become involved was based on a desire to help change our society in meaningful ways.  “Working to move our society to become a safer place for women, and especially children, is extremely important. I see domestic minor sex trafficking as the lowest common-denominator of our dark side, and now that we have social science data behind us, we can work and demand that it ends.”

[easy-tweet tweet=”I see domestic minor sex trafficking as the lowest common-denominator of our dark side, and now that we have social science data behind us, we can work and demand that it ends.” user=”SharedHope”]

We asked Greg what it means as a man to be involved in fighting sex trafficking. “As a man, I have watched and lived the ‘boys will be boys’ attitude that so many of us use to excuse ourselves. It’s culturally acceptable to treat women as if they were carved out and laying in the grocery butcher’s case.” He points out that he emphasizes the dark side that this kind of treatment of women feeds into. “Personally, had I known, I would not have behaved at times towards women as I did as a young man. Being an Ambassador of Hope has an aspect of penance for me; giving back to this younger generation so they won’t hold the same attitudes I used to hold. At this stage in my own life it is a no-brainer … men MUST stop sexually degrading women, and must defend their safety and well-being from predators.”

Greg puts his Ambassador time and energy into speaking to high school students, and when there is time, he highlights the men’s Defenders program. He adds passionately, “ The ‘boys will be boys’ attitude begins when guys are young, so it is never too early to instill in them the harmful effects that too often result from seemingly harmless sexual banter and behavior toward girls. Once given this information, just being one of the boys entails an element of knowledge that can no longer be completely ignored.”

[easy-tweet tweet=”The ‘boys will be boys’ attitude begins when guys are young, it’s never too early to instill in them the harmful effects that too often result from seemingly harmless sexual banter & behavior.” user=”SharedHope”]

And that’s why it’s important for men to be Ambassadors and change the culture by mentoring young men to change their attitudes.