Coffee and Courage at the Ground-Level of Community Care

Thrive New England supports human trafficking survivors before they have the words for what they’ve lived through—mentoring with presence, trust, and relentless community care.

Most morning iced coffees at Dunks, you don’t notice the quiet dramas playing out in the parking lot. But she said it was love, and she took nine months before she even whispered the word trafficked in the passenger seat of that car two spots over from you, showing up week after week.

No sirens. No caseworkers. Just obnoxiously loud rap music, a teenager who wouldn’t make eye contact, and Thrive New England’s Program Director, Brynn Bowyer, showing up again and again, orchestrating a rescue mission from nothing but trust, awkward silences, and time.

cont. below ⬇️

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In Their Shoes: A Community Art Opening

In Their Shoes is a powerful multimedia art exhibit created by local teens and survivors of sexual exploitation and human trafficking in New England. Each hand-designed pair of shoes reveals a personal journey of trauma, resilience, and hope.

This one-night event is hosted by Thrive New England and The Aplomb Project, two nonprofits using art and community to confront exploitation and support healing. The evening also features The Art of Healing, an exhibition by The Aplomb Project highlighting the transformative power of creative expression.

Presented by Thrive New England & The Aplomb Project

Thursday, June 5 | 5–8 p.m.
The Aplomb Gallery, 15 Mechanic St., Suite 117, Dover
Google Maps Link
Register Here

Join Us For:

• A moving, interactive art experience

• Community conversation around prevention and healing

• Light refreshments

• Opportunities to support survivor-led organizations

Suggested donations benefit Thrive New England and The Aplomb Project—501(c)(3) organizations dedicated to survivor advocacy, trauma-informed mentorship, and creative justice.

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NBC Boston 10 reported in 2023 that the U.S. has seen a dramatic increase in human trafficking across the nation. Just this year alone in 2025, Massachusetts has already logged 94 cases of human trafficking, ranking 25th nationally. Connecticut counted 42 cases, Maine 36, New Hampshire 29, and Rhode Island 13, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

Although the World Population Review charts a decline since 2021, that dip in numbers reflects official, prosecutable police reports and not the kid sitting in Brynn Bowyer’s passenger seat who doesn’t yet realize she’s being sold. The National Human Trafficking Hotline numbers include tips from survivors, concerned citizens, social workers, and organizations like Thrive. Most of these alerts never make their way into the criminal justice system, and many are never recognized as crimes.

If World Population Review is the rearview mirror—slow, official, legally verified- then the hotline, Thrive, they are the dashboard warning lights.

“We have a lot of teenagers that are in these exploitative and trafficking situations who have no idea that they’re really even in that,” said Jennifer Holt, Marketing and Communications for Thrive. “And men are less likely to report their victimization because we have not empowered boys to speak up. What’s very concerning is that online exploitation has quadrupled in three years.”

Launched in 2014 by a small group of Mainers who believed survivors should shape the systems meant to heal them, Thrive New England began with a singular focus: aftercare for teens brutalized by trafficking. Today, the program has evolved into a long-haul support model for both teens and adults. Thrive has since developed three core programs that are anchored in its mission:

• The Prevention Program – Rolled out in 2018 at Sanford High School, this curriculum trains New England youth to recognize grooming, exploitation, and online traps before they fall into them. It's tailored to the region’s unique “we-don’t-talk-about-that” culture.

• The Restorative Care Program – A survivor-driven, strengths-based support model built specifically for teens. Wraparound services include mentorship, therapy referrals, legal aid, basic life skills, and emotional rebuilding—delivered by a network of professionals and volunteers.

• The Survivor Leadership Program – For adults reclaiming their lives after exploitation, Thrive offers 1:1 coaching, group support, and goal-setting structures designed to build confidence, restore dignity, and prevent relapse into abusive systems.

“What makes Thrive really unique is that we make sure that people who are doing the work have lived experience,” says Holt. “And [Brynn] is our first graduate of our Survivor Leadership Program. The fact she’s using her pain and her trauma for others is really telling of where she’s come from and how she’s using that for good. So we have these teenagers, and the things that come out of their mouths would shock all of us. And Brynn’s like…”

“Yeah, I’m not cool. I don’t understand why they like hanging out with me, but they do,” says Brynn. And she’s there, every week for an hour at the Dunk’s parking lot with two iced coffees, a teen slouched in the passenger seat, hoodie up, and whatever bad choice in music the kid chose. Most people wouldn’t call this mentorship, but underneath the bass is a clinical precision you’d never spot unless you knew what to look for.

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Brynn is meeting the kid exactly where she is, matching rhythms, tolerating silences, refusing to flinch, presence without agenda, without diagnosis, and without prying—relational attunement at its best.

Eventually, the music is turned down and the teen starts talking about school, about friends, about anime characters that are too real, always Taylor Swift despite the rap music, how they want to dye their hair blue but also not want their mom to to say they’re unstable, and how they told their parents they were watching Disney+ when they were watching Euphoria with captions. Then even littler things: a weird bruise, a scary night. And one day, the teen speaks the story, narrative processing in motion, and Brynn’s just sipping coffee, eyes on the road, nodding.

What comes next is the holy-shit moment, the cognitive reframing, when the sixteen-year-old girl says out loud, “He’s 32.”

“She’s hearing what she’s saying and going, ‘oh, wait a minute…” and she’s realized that was an inappropriate relationship, that what he was doing to her was not right, and then nine months before she’s realized she’s been trafficked,” says Brynn.

92% of Thrive’s survivors in their care live abuse-free.

“And we even think that [number] is actually higher. But like, a hundred percent? That sounds like a lie, right—if I said we have a hundred percent success rate, you'd be like, ‘you're a liar,’” said Holt.

“We have different metrics for different people,” said Holt. When dealing with teenagers, Thrive looks to see if they are restoring relationships, if they are creating healthy boundaries with their peers, and if they are working towards goals like going back to school and doing chores around the house. For adults, Thrive might examine housing stability, employment, and ongoing personal development.

But not every story is neat, and success doesn’t always come with a lease. In one case, a survivor discovered her trafficker lived in the same building. Thrive and the client together opted for couch-surfing because, in that moment, homelessness was safer than staying.

Thrive doesn’t have an office or a sign. They're ahead of the paperwork, working out of cars, coffee shops, and Zoom squares with a team you can count on one hand. And referrals flow in—from DHHS, from probation officers, from teens themselves. “We look a lot bigger than we are,” Holt said. “We have one paid staff [member]. The rest of us are volunteers or subcontractors.”

Of course, there are other organizations out there, but very few, and mostly juvenile facilities or programs for girls only, and none with the intense mentorship and wraparound care that Thrive provides.

“No one else does mentorship for teen survivors,” Brynn said. The small organization’s footprint covers all of New England, but they’ve specifically practiced in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. And Brynn’s own case workload has tripled within the last six months.

Thrive expects those numbers to triple again.

“We are in a really interesting situation where we're doing good work, but we need to move to the next level,” said Holt. “It's integral we start getting in front of people who are passionate—we're looking for people who are so passionate about protecting kids. Who want to invest in this work to provide prevention to all teenagers in New England. And we want people who are passionate about helping survivors achieve independence and freedom, and safety and mental health. We want our communities to thrive. We want our communities to be safe and for people to know that they are valued. And the work we do is because we love the communities that we live in. And we don’t want anyone to experience what the people we’re working with have already experienced. And we have the capability of preventing a lot if we all work together as a community.”

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Let’s raise awareness. Let’s raise each other.
Learn more at thrivenewengland.org/intheirshoes
and theaplombproject.org

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