In the summer of 2016, I got the opportunity to tell a very powerful story. A local refuge for human trafficking victims called “A Safe Place” was having a large fundraising event and asked me to craft a video to encourage donations. Through my research I learned that trafficking of women and men isn’t just something that happens in larger cities. In fact, 25% of all trafficking victims who enter the U.S. end up here in the southeast. For our production, I was given unprecedented access to a safe house and spoke with a young lady (renamed “Natalie”) whose life trajectory had been altered due to the efforts of this organization. I bonded with Natalie over our love of soul food and her fictitious name came from her fondness of singer Natalie Cole. My approach was to tell Natalie’s story using her own unscripted words and pepper it with statistics to both inform and inspire those in attendance to open their wallets for this nonprofit. The video caused a haunting hush to come over the event’s room and now lives on the front page of their website.