High school senior raises $5k for local non-profit human trafficking organization

This was all raised by Stockdale high school senior Mukul Anand. who wants to inspire the youth to get involved in their community.

“When I found out that they needed funds, and I found more about their organization, their project and their story, I knew that I could get the community to come together and help with this,” said Anand.

After learning about emPOWERment, an organization created last year to support survivors of human trafficking, Anand decided he wanted to get involved.

At first, the organization hosted a sock drive, in hopes to reach a $500 goal, but Anand thought they could raise more than that.

“I just reached out to community leaders, small business owners that I've met over the years, and they were more than happy to help,” he said.

Now, the $5,000 check will help emPOWERment provide scholarships to students as part of the organization, and take them to new places and organizations so they can gain new positive experiences.

Odessa Perkins is the founder of the organization, and a human trafficking survivor.

She described Anand as “an absolutely amazing young man,” and said he went above and beyond to raise the money.

She said when she first found out she cried,  because it was so important to her to know that people cared.

Perkins shared that because of her own experience, she is willing to help anyone who is a victim or a survivor, regardless of their age.

“When I started being touched I was 4, so it can be anybody. At risk doesn't have an age, and victims don't have an age. I started being victimized at a very young age, but I started being trafficked at about 12 or 13,” said Perkins.

She said this is part of the reason that motivated her to start emPOWERment.

“It just encouraged me to start emPOWERment, to help at-risk youth and human trafficking survivors know that there is a better way, that no matter what you're going through you can get out of it because I did too.”

“I know I can't save everybody, but you know the saying, if you can save one, you've fulfilled your purpose, but I'm going to save more,” she said.

Senator Shannon Grove also motivated Perkins to create the non-profit after a conversation they had. Grove wanted Perkins' to speak on what is now SB 14, a bill which would strengthen public safety by including human trafficking as a serious and violent crime under California law.

Perkins is also an educator, and said because of this, she wants to help students in ways that nobody helped her.

“Nobody asked me what was wrong, if I was okay, I was just considered a bad kid,” she said when talking about her experience growing up.  “I wanted to be a different type of educator.”

Perkins just wants victims and survivors to know they can survive their experiences, and she wants to help.

I want them to know that they can overcome, look at me, I overcame.

To learn even more about emPOWERment, you can click here.