Patty Seaman asks me if I have a personal mission statement. It’s a question I haven’t been asked before, nor one I’ve thought about. Rachel Beatty says Patty asks everyone that, and we laugh. I contemplate mine the rest of the day—and the inspiration I feel from Seaman’s own.
“My personal mission statement is to continually support, persistently empower and resiliently pursue the restoration of women who have been exploited,” she reads to me, typed in her notes app. “It’s important to always know what your mission statement is in life because if you don’t, you’re going to be pulled in 20 different directions and not actually do what you’re called to do.”
It's evident Seaman doesn't need to refer to her notes to recall her statement, but keeps it there as a reminder anyway. In fact, she doesn't just know her calling—she lives and breathes it every day. It’s the core of who she is, and she exemplifies this through her work with Peace Promise.
Peace Promise is a nonprofit organization that works with women impacted by sexual exploitation in Central Pennsylvania. It was founded in 2008 by a mom prayer group who began raising awareness on the issue locally. Seaman says she joined their movement and started going into local strip clubs and building relationships with the women working in them.
“The very first night that I got that invitation to go in and do outreach in the club, I literally fell in love with the girls I met that night,” Seaman says. “They’re absolutely amazing. When they allow you into their world, when you get past that pain, they have some of the biggest hearts you’ll ever meet.”
From that night on, Seaman says there was “nothing that could stop me from loving them,” and the rest is history.
Photography By Karlo Gesner
More than 10 years later, Peace Promise has helped dozens of women who were sexually exploited completely exit the commercial sex industry and gain the viable resources and employment needed to never go back.
“We’re specific to sex trafficking. … Anytime anybody else is profiting off the sale of somebody else’s sexuality … that’s where we step in,” Seaman says.
Peace Promise works with women who easily recognize themselves as trafficking survivors, but also with those who have been exploited but may not readily identify as so.
“There’s a mindset that trafficking is something that’s always moving, but that’s actually not the case. Most of the trafficking in Central Pennsylvania is what I call homegrown,” she says. “We have women that are born and raised locally, and they are being trafficked through their family members … mothers … anyone who could be considered a safe person. That’s more common than you would think.”
As the executive director of client services for Peace Promise, Seaman's role is to foster long-term relationships with the women, who become family.
Photography By Karlo Gesner
“Everybody knows my table is a very large family table now because we have survivors that are at my family meals … at holiday meals,” she says. “We build relationships because we can’t speak into their life until they value that relationship.”
However, Peace Promise’s work goes far beyond that. The women go through a curriculum with classes like finance management, law enforcement interactions, Crock-Pot meals … “everything you can think of that an adult would need,” Seaman says.
“There’s obstacles you and I might not even think are an obstacle, but for them, they are because they haven’t been exposed. Grocery shopping is a simple example,” she says. “For some of our girls, if they were raised in a setting where, say, Mom was an addict and nodding out on a regular basis … and their siblings are hungry … they just walk to the corner store and get the things they know will get their siblings to quit crying. So … you grow up, and you’re not used to going through a store and planning out a week’s worth of groceries.”
Photography By Karlo Gesner
There are also fun electives like painting and camping, skills not typically learned in traumatic childhoods and homes.
Another part of the curriculum—the most integral, Seaman says—is employment.
“We’ve had survivors lose their jobs because they had a trauma response at work. Or we’ve had survivors been offered jobs but asked to stay late because the boss saw prostitution charges on their record, so he said they needed to give him favors to keep their job,” she says. “Because they’ve never worked in a traditional job setting … they don’t know some social nuances or have the skill set.”
That’s where Good Ground Coffee Company, and Rachel Beatty, come into play.
“Good Ground started as a college project for me. For one of my classes, we had to write a business plan … that had a mission behind it, and I love coffee shops, and I had this passion for anti-trafficking work,” Beatty says.
Beatty, along with her Messiah University peer Rachel Ferrence, pitched the idea of a coffee shop that employs survivors of sex trafficking, and they were then connected with Peace Promise.
Photography By Karlo Gesner
“I didn’t even know if this would be something that could be helpful. We just wanted to hear from people who were actively working with survivors, so we met with them, and everything was hypothetical, and an hour later, it wasn’t hypothetical anymore,” Beatty says. “They invited us to tour this building the next day … and things just kind of lined up, and once we graduated, we started working with Peace Promise to open the coffee shop.”
Good Ground opened its doors in Camp Hill in May, with the objectives to “serve good coffee” and emotionally and economically “empower survivors of trafficking.”
Photography By Karlo Gesner
Beatty says they currently have five survivors working at the coffee shop, already surpassing their goal of employing one to three in the first year.
Seaman adds that the women have to meet requirements prior to working at Good Ground, like sobriety, stable housing and being out of the sex industry. Each survivor receives a coffee shop wage, and as long as they complete 85% of their program requirements every month, they get a bonus to teach them skills like budgeting and paying large bills.
Photography By Karlo Gesner
“We’re setting them on a path for a good future in life and getting them established,” Seaman says. “Just seeing their personalities come out and seeing the confidence come out … it’s awesome to watch them thriving.”
Both Beatty and Seaman agree how impactful the coffee shop has been for the survivors and community in just the short time it’s been open, and it reminds them of how important their mission is.
Photography By Karlo Gesner
“Trafficking is not exclusive to one color, one body shape, one weight, one height or one economic structure. It can be anybody because it preys on the vulnerabilities,” Seaman says.
“I feel like this issue is very taboo and pushed to the side,” Beatty adds. “Once you shine a light on this topic, it’s hard to look away.”
Good Ground Coffee Company
244 S 17th St, Camp Hill, PA | 717-712-3869 | goodgroundcoffeecompany.org
Peace Promise
717-686-9160 | peacepromise.org | Facebook: @peacepromisepa
