Monroe climber stepped up to fight human trafficking

Published 5:04 pm Wednesday, November 12, 2014

In 2008, Monroe native Jeremy Vallerand found himself in the red-light district of Mumbai, getting a tour with a humanitarian group working to help the victims of human trafficking.

“It just totally messed me up,” he said. “I had never seen exploitation that blatant and that level of crime and brokenness.”

The next day, he went with the charity workers to see homes where women and children who had been rescued lived.

“I was sort of bracing myself for something that I thought would be somber and depressing,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting to see such vibrant hope and life. The girls and women and children were full of joy and life and dreams and ambition and were excelling in school and graduating and going to school.”

And then it was time for him to head home. He had a 24-hour introduction to human trafficking in its most real and raw form.

“It just rocked my world,” he said.

Once he got home, he couldn’t let it go. He was training to climb Mount Rainier with a group of friends. One day, before a training hike, he got an email from a friend who was running a marathon to raise money to fight cancer.

So two weeks before they were to climb Rainier, he had a new idea. What if they used the climb to raise money for victims of human trafficking? How about $14,410? Could they raise $1 for every foot of elevation of Mount Rainier?

Turns out they could. And more. They raised more than $20,000 that year, and all of that money went toward fighting human trafficking.

They named themselves Climb for Captives, and the next year, 2009, they did it again. Once again, they blew away their goal.

They took a break and then climbed again in 2012 and have been climbing since.

This year, they climbed Mount Adams with their largest group yet, 26 climbers. They raised about $113,000.

Their efforts have gained attention. They were invited to climb Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous U.S., with a camera crew for a reality TV show. Five of the climbers from Mount Adams joined the climb. Along with additional climbers and a production crew, they headed out on an RV road trip to Whitney earlier this week.

The climbs have turned fighting human trafficking into a passion for many of the climbers. Vallerand is now president of Rescue: Freedom International, a nonprofit based in Kirkland that rescues and supports victims of human trafficking and works to fight trafficking.

He and three of the other climbers have met some of the girls they’ve helped save. They can tell the personal stories of how those victims have been helped. And some of the girls send them notes of support and encouragement before the climbs. That personal connection really helps make the issue real for climbers, Vallerand said.

“It’s no longer just about some social issue,” Vallerand said. “It’s really about individual young girls that have been rescued from a life of exploitation. This climb gets to be a part of helping them pursue their dreams and have a safe place to live and experience freedom.”

Josh Hebert, the Monroe Campus Pastor for EastLake Community Church, has been with Climb for Captives since the beginning. He said it’s been exciting to see how the money raised can help and to watch their efforts spread.

The number of climbers has grown and the cause has enticed friends and family. Some family and friends of climbers held a garage sale and donated the proceeds to fight slavery. One of Hebert’s friends liked to cook, so she hosted dinners to raise money.

Vallerand says they’ve also gotten interest from other athletes. Earlier this year, a group of bicyclists used the RSVP bike ride to raise money. Vallerand is working on a online platform to make it easier for others to do the same thing. He calls it “adventure philanthropy.”

“We’re doing something we love to fight something we hate,” he said.

“The climbing part is interesting,” Hebert said, “and that’s how we do it. But it’s the cause that’s more important. And inspiring others to use whatever tools they can to fight trafficking.”

The climbing also makes it easy to start a conversation about human trafficking and sexual slavery, Vallerand said. It’s not an easy topic to bring up, but climbing a huge mountain, that’s easy to talk about. It’s a good way to start a conversation.

“There’s nothing special about us,” Vallerand said. “We’re just normal guys, normal friends who decided we were going to think outside the box to use our hobbies and our interests to make the world a better place.”

The cause

Climb for Captives, www.climbforcaptives.com, raises money to support victims of human trafficking. The money goes to Rescue: Freedom International, which works to fight human trafficking and support its victims.

In many cases, the victims supported are children of women forced into prostitution. The group provides those children housing, clothing and education until they are old enough to support themselves. Learn more about them at www.rescuefreedom.org.