I’ve had the privilege of working on a really cool project the last six weeks or so at work – a new campaign we’ve launched called Traffic Jam. It’s designed to unite musicians and their fans to raise awareness and funds for anti-trafficking work that World Orphans and their partner organizations do.

Sometimes I take for granted that everyone realizes the statistics behind some of this issues but it is obvious from various conversations that it’s just not true. In fact a survey shows that 48% of Americans aren’t aware of the magnitude of the problem.

• The truth is that there are an estimated 27 million people enslaved in human trafficking today!
• Human trafficking is the third largest revenue-generating illegal trade – behind drugs and guns. Estimates range from $10-32 billion per year.
• 600,000 to 800,000 people are smuggled over international borders every year.
• 80% of them are women. 75% are part of the sex industry.
• The average cost of a human slave? $90
• The average age a girl enters into prostitution is 14 years old.

Those are just the numbers, these are the faces – Neah, Mary, Christopher, and Anna.

We took the Traffic Jam message up to Northern Michigan for the Big Ticket Musical Festival where we sponsored the Rock Stage for 3 days and got to share our message with the fans of Superchick, Disciple, Attaboy, Decyfer Down, Kronicles, Devil Wears Prada, Sargent Avenue and more.

Our purpose was threefold while we were there:

1. Connect with Christian musicians to let them know about the campaign and find those who had a similar passion
2. Share the message with the nearly 12,000 fans in attendance
3. Get a bunch of guitars autographed by the artists that can be auctioned off later to raise funds for anti-trafficking projects

All 3 were a huge success. We met a ton of great bands. I don’t have a single piece of photographic proof (since I was behind the camera taking pics of the boss with all these guys) but I got to meet Casting Crowns, Newsboys, Lincoln Brewster, Bluetree, Kutless, Brandon Heath and a bunch of other great artists – all super nice!

Personally my favorite “find” of the festival was Attaboy – they played on our rock stage and I got a chance to visit with two of their band members at length. I bought their new album “Remade” and have listened to it pretty much on repeat every since then. Love every single song. You can preview the album on their Facebook page!

If you want to find out more about Traffic Jam and what we’re going to be doing with all those really cool guitars (can you say Christmas gifts anyone?) you can either sign up for the mailing list or join the Traffic Jam Facebook page.