Recently, SHU’s human trafficking coalition, beFree, hosted the S.O.A.P (“Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution”) project Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of last week (March 21-23). The soap is distributed to major hotels, and it includes a hotline number for human trafficking victims.  Students were asked to label the back of a piece of bar soap with a bright red sticker that has the human trafficking hot line on it.

beFree Vice President Andrea Rumler has been with beFree since the startup, a total of a semester and a half.

“I definitely think that the table brought awareness to human trafficking at the SOAP table because many students have not learned much about this topic/issue, so bringing initial awareness to HT was beneficial,” said Rumler. “We completed three boxes of soap, 1,000 bars each. So 3,000 bars total.”

She said she thought students felt like they were taking action towards combating HT by labeling the soap, because it is going to be distributed to “real people at real places, so they definitely made a difference,” she said.

beFree meets every other Friday at 11 a.m.in the University Center community room and is open to any and all students/community members! Those who are interested, please contact President Amber Lipke at [email protected] or (517) 215-8209.