As a senior at ASL, Erica Greve started helping out at Oxfam on St. John’s Wood High Street, selling secondhand clothes every Saturday morning. The feeling of giving back and committing to a cause was so fulfilling, she decided to grow the scale of her volunteer work. That’s why, nearly 20 years ago, Erica founded ASL Community Service Day. Today, this altruistic alumna serves as president and founder of Unlikely Heroes, an international nonprofit whose mission is to rescue and rehabilitate child victims of sex slavery.
Recalling the inaugural Community Service Day, now a semiannual tradition at ASL, Erica expressed gratitude for the people who helped her first get the program off the ground. “A group of moms took on my idea and ran with it to make the day a success,” she shared over the phone from her Los Angeles office. Erica later earned the Marcus Spencer Award for community service, but the real win, she claimed, was the school-wide support she received when organizing the event. “ASL rallied behind me and made Community Service Day happen,” she asserted.
Following graduation, Erica attended American University and eventually earned her master’s in social work at UC Berkeley in 2008. As part of her MSW field education, she interned as an emergency room social worker for a children’s hospital near San Francisco. “It was my job to capture the story of the kids who came through the door,” she explained. One terrifying story was told to her time and time again by young, vulnerable girls who were forced into sex trafficking, suffered abuse and had nowhere to go for help. Turning to her supervisor for suggestions on resources she could offer these girls, Erica discovered that there were none. “I had to do something,” Erica said. “I wanted to create homes for these kids and give them a safe haven.”
After raising $40,000 in two months, Erica founded Unlikely Heroes in 2011 and opened her first home for children rescued out of sex slavery in the Philippines. Unlikely Heroes now has rescue and restoration projects in place in the Philippines, Thailand and Mexico and provides each rescued child with medical care, therapy, food, shelter and job training. “I’m so proud of these girls,” Erica gushed. “They are thriving and inspiring. It’s an honor to be a part of their story.”
The Unlikely Heroes team is busy preparing for their upcoming red carpet gala in Los Angeles on 19 October to raise money to build more safe homes worldwide. Visit http://unlikelyheroes.com/ to learn more about Erica’s organization and how you can help.
