Magdalenes Inc.

TO LOVE AND SERVE ALL WOMEN IN THEIR JOURNEY TOWARD HEALING AND RESTORATION.

Served women serving women.

Goal One: Ensure our social enterprise, Magdalene's Gifts & Gatherings, continues to meet its financial goal and a place for gathering together in support of ending human trafficking in our area.

Goal Two: Complete programming for Magdalene's House, including final agreements with providers of services such as trauma-informed counseling, intensive outpatient treatment, education and vocational training.

Goal Three: Locate and purchase or construct home for long-term residential care for survivors.

We are a newly formed organization but our first effort was to contract for mentoring by a well established, 20-year organization providing awareness and programming for adult women of sex trafficking, the initial focus of Magdalene's. We are also a member of the Thistle Farms National Network, a nationally recognized organization dedicated to helping women survivors recover and heal from prostitution, trafficking and addiction. Once Magdalene's House is open, we will become a Sister Organization, joining more than 60 other Sister Organizations that are a part of that national network. Through monthly conference calls we are able to access lessons learned, proven administrative practices and the manner in which these organizations have addressed challenges and obstacles to successfully address services for adult women survivors. We recently attended a Thistle Farms Education Workshop where four of our leaders learned effective strategic planning and delivery of services.

As mentioned earlier, we incorporated in April of 2020. We spent the next months identifying needed areas of leadership, recruitment of Board members to address those needs, finalizing our mission and vision statement and developing our initial program requirements. We applied for our 501(c)(3) designation on October 30, 2020 and received our designation on January 11, 2021. One of our first initiatives was to take possession of a building in poor condition that had been a massage parlor known for sex trafficking and transform it to Magdalene's Gifts & Gatherings, a 100% managed and staffed gift shop carrying artisan and survivor crafted gifts. The net proceeds of the shop are used to fund our mission, including a place for vocational training for clients. All of this had to be addressed under the challenges presented by COVID. To further complicate matters, Hurricane Sally hit our area on September 16, 2020, which caused significant flooding and damage to our area, including damaging the main bridge access to our area. Additionally, access to builders and building supplies for the renovation of Magdalene's Gifts & Gatherings became severely limited. In spite of this challenge, we requested and received more than $80,000 of inkind contributions, including a general contractor that donated its time in completing the renovations of the building. The inkind support included a new HVAC system and upgrade to the electrical system. Despite these challenges, we held our grand opening on October 1, 2021, and the shop has received considerable support from the community.