Over 100 girls on campus are sporting a grey dress of their choosing for 30 days to raise awareness for human sex trafficking in Toledo and around the globe.
“The one grey dress represents the lack of choices women have who have been sex trafficked,” Mackenzie Bowen, President of Panhellenic Council, said.
In addition to raising awareness, the project sets out to raise money for three charities: The Daughter Project, the Circle of Sisterhood and the Aruna Project.
The Daughter Project is a Toledo based non-profit that rescues and rehabs girls who have been sex trafficked.
Bowen said this project “hits close to home because Toledo is the fourth largest city for human sex trafficking in the world.”
According to the Circle of Sisterhood website, it is “a non-profit organization founded and powered by sorority women on a mission to raise financial resources to help remove education barriers for girls and women facing poverty and oppression.”
Bowen said Panhellenic supports the Circle of Sisterhood year round in its philanthropy.
The Aruna 5K raises money to free, empower and employ women in South Asia who have been sexually exploited.
Panhellenic Council sponsors the race with $500, which takes place on the last day of the One Grey Dress Project, October 24.
Many of the girls who participate in the One Grey Dress Project run the race and some of them run in their dresses, Bowen said.
Ashley Hillis, Vice President of Service for Panhellenic Council, said the girls who participate in the project are encouraged to volunteer for the race.
PanHellenic Council had a goal of raising $8,000 within the 30 days and raised $7,500 within the first two weeks, Hillis said.
She attributed this success to the awareness being spread not only in person, but also over social media.
“We are all basically social media,” Hillis said. “We tell the girls that they make the experience what they want it to be.”
Bowen said the project has been gaining more of a following over the years.
She said last year only about 20 to 30 girls from the Panhellenic community participated.
After the success of last year, more girls from the community wanted to participate this year.
Brooke Breckenridge, Vice President of Scholarship for Panhellenic Council, said she participated in the event last year and has seen it on campus since her freshman year in 2012.
She said while the process of wearing the one dress for 30 days has some symbolic relation to the women in these situations, it is more about starting a conversation.
“Some mornings you want to wear anything but the grey dress,” Breckenridge said. “You experience what it is like not to have choices, but I could never compare the grey dress to their experience.”
To donate to the project visit crowdrise.com/OneGreyDress-BGSU.
