Veterans Café
Vulnerability and Human Trafficking
Presented by Amy Thurston
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Join us to learn more about how human trafficking affects all of us and what we can do about it.
Amy Thurston is the Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Hope Inspire Love. As CEO, she is passionate about leading the organization’s daily operations and strategic planning efforts. As a seasoned executive, she is guiding the mission of eradicating human trafficking and sexual exploitation, providing freedom to victims, hope to the hopeless, and restoring the lives of survivors.
Fueled by her passion for justice, she has spent nearly two decades building innovative programs that apply a social justice lens to teens and young adults’ experienced trauma. By empowering survivors to outgrow the label of ‘survivor’ and fostering their strengths, she has cultivated critical efforts to uplift, inspire, and encourage others to be their best selves.
Amy is a leader in the movement to end sex trafficking by advancing solutions through advocacy, evaluation and learning, and other innovative approaches to addressing the resilience of survivors as a daily inspiration in the fight to end trafficking. Her work has focused on youth development, education programs, faith-based initiatives, and community building throughout her career. Amy has distinguished herself in leading strategic business development efforts and organizational strategy and is a passionate advocate for people to be seen, loved, and cared for.
Amy is as extroverted as you can get and is a social people person who feels called to love on people. Amy desires to be an agent of life transformation to people wholeheartedly. She thrives in helping people discover their God-given gifts and search for their purpose as they bring honor to God and service to their community.
She currently spearheads Hope Inspire Love’s Trauma-informed Mentorship Program, where she works with survivors of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. She also sits on the board of Greenlight Operation, a nonprofit that strategically combats human trafficking through educational initiatives and serves sex-trafficked women through a continuum of restorative care.
Prior to founding Hope Inspire Love, Amy was the Connections Director at Victory Church, helping people discover their passions and spiritual gifts and helping them discover their next steps in serving the church and their community. She also thrived in guiding people to connect into groups and helped develop leaders to lead small groups. She also worked in higher education for fifteen years, where she developed a genuine heart for youth, young adults, and ministry. During her tenure, she led the creation of a mentorship program for university students.
Since 2002, she has mentored and advocated for survivors of sexual abuse. Her previous work with human injustice in Chile and Nicaragua has also provided powerful serving opportunities that have changed people’s lives.
Amy is a proud graduate of Southeastern University and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Youth Ministry and Counseling and is all-but-thesis on her Masters in Christian Leadership. Amy is a Certified Clinical Trauma Specialist in Sex Trafficking and Exploitation. She also has certifications in iCare: Recognizing and Caring for Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Victims from Shared Hope International and trauma-informed training from Trauma Institute International. She also is a life coach and a credentialed minister, speaker, and educator.
Amy and her husband Steve also share a passion for missions and spent many years training young adults for missions along with leading teams to foreign countries.
She currently lives in the Lancaster County area but never misses a summer at the finger lakes in upstate New York. Amy and her husband are blessed with two young adult sons and one rambunctious little girl who loves the beach and skipping stones on lakes, and riding unicorns with fluffy feathers in her spare time.
When not trying to make the world a better place, Amy can usually be found in her newest interest, riding her vintage cruiser bike around her neighborhood with her family and dog Lucy Lu.
The Veterans Café is located at the Building Bridges Foundation and is held every Thursday morning.
Coffee, Tea, Snacks are provided and there is never a charge.
230 Indian Hill Road
Conestoga, PA 17516