HCWC Hosting Annual Meeting: “Commercial Exploitation of Children in America”

HCWC’s Director of Community Partnerships describes this year’s topic as, “something we rarely discuss in Hays and Caldwell County. It’s a dark secret but one that deserves our full attention.”

On Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 6:00pm, HCWC will be hosting their Annual Meeting at San Marcos Recreation Hall, 170 Charles Austin Drive. The public is invited to attend.

This year’s Guest Speaker is Wende Hilsenrod, serves as a Training Specialist for the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (TAASA).

Wende has provided curriculum development and training, as well as presented on, the intersectionality’s of abuses, sexual violence and human trafficking at statewide, national and international conferences, universities, military installations, law enforcement agencies and local sexual assault programs.

She will be presenting on “The Commercial Exploitation of Children in America: Rape is a horrific crime. Prostitution is a terrible life – especially when you are 12. Making the connections between the different forms of abuse and the different forms of human trafficking, is imperative to combat the exploitation of children, and to prevent it.” Wende is going to talk about how these dynamics and how, as a community, we can help.

HCWC’s Director of Community Partnerships describes this year’s topic as, “something we rarely discuss in Hays and Caldwell County. It’s a dark secret but one that deserves our full attention.”

In this past year, HCWC served a total of 1,877 face to face victims of family violence, dating violence, sexual assault and child abuse from Hays and Caldwell County.  HCWC answered 3,188 HELPLine crisis calls – a 29% increase from the previous year and responded to 56 individuals through our HEARTeam program at area hospitals.

HCWC helps local victims of abuse, but their core mission is to prevent violence and abuse in the community; their Prevention and Community Education program reached 20,402 people, double the number from last year.

HELPLine and HEARTeam are just one way 351 volunteers helped victims of abuse in their community this past year. Special volunteer awards will be presented to the following volunteers for their outstanding work on behalf of victims of abuse: Changemakers, Gael Thompson, Living Word Lutheran Church of Buda and the Chris Banbury Volunteer of the Year Award to Ondrea Moffatt who individually volunteered 1,240.50 hours of her time to directly serve victims of abuse.

In addition to recognizing these amazing volunteers, we also present our proposed slate of Board members up for vote, which includes: Dan O’Brien, Marsha Moore, Brian Erskine, Donald Lee, Carolyn Linér, Ryan White, Tosha Coleman, Gabriel Garza, Alice Lochman and Glenn Miles.

The Hays-Caldwell Women’s Center has a 40-year history of serving women, men and children in Hays and Caldwell Counties who are victims of family violence, dating violence, sexual assault and child abuse. All HCWC services are free and confidential.  For more information please visit www.hcwc.org<http://www.hcwc.org> or call (512) 396-HELP.