We are Rick and Ralph and after being together for over 24 years having various commitment ceremonies all over the world…we were finally legally married in August. When we aren’t traveling or working in our yard, we enjoy fundraising with our friends for various causes dear to us.
We chose to be Disney’s Geppetto and Pinocchio. Most people think this is a cute little fairytale, but it is actually a story of human trafficking where Pinocchio himself is exploited and used to make money for others’ benefit and in the end he finds the right path with the help of others, like the CCAHT.
For many years we have worked with the East Tennessee Foundation with grants all over East Tennessee. We thought we knew about most of the organizations in our community and the issues they to address - then we were asked to call on CCAHT for a grant. As we read and researched the grant, we were horrified to learn of the human trafficking in our own backyard. We thought this was just something that happened in third world nations!
Ralph and I felt with our years of work in East Tennessee, if we were unaware of the issues our community faced, others were unaware too. We have been actively educating our own friends about human trafficking and about the work that CCAHT does.
We are taking part in this event as a way of introducing our friends and acquaintances to this horrible problem in our community and introducing them to CCAHT so we can all work together to put an end to this.