Task Force to host Community Resource Fair and Expo this summer
- Low Country Human Trafficking Task Force
- 13 hours ago
- 2 min read
The Lowcountry Human Trafficking Task Force will host a free community resource fair and expo in Hardeeville.
The event kicks off at 10 a.m. Aug. 25, 2025, at the Hardeeville Recreation Center on John Smith Road at the Hardeeville Recreation Center. The expo will feature vendors from non-profits, governmental agencies, law enforcement, health care providers, local philanthropic groups and others who have anti-trafficking initiatives.
“This is an opportunity to collaborate and coordinate with each other in the fight against human trafficking,” said JoJo Woodward of the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office and task force co-chair. “We all want to help, and this is a good way to combine all of our efforts in a thoughtful and impactful manner.”
Many organizations will have information about volunteer opportunities.
Space is still available for vendors.
This event will serve as the regional task force’s quarterly meeting. The group’s last meeting of the year will be Oct. 27, 2025, and will be virtual. To register as a vendor for the upcoming resource fair, or to sign up for the October meeting, email Erinn McGuire at emcguire@scsolicitor14.org.
Michelle Fraser, the task force’s direct services chair and director of the 14th Circuit Victims Services Center, reminds people that “human trafficking isn’t something that happens only in other places; it happens here, and help is available.”
If you, or someone you know, is being forced to engage in any activity and cannot leave, whether it is commercial sex, housework, farm work, or any other activity, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or by texting 233733 (BEFREE). The hotline is available 24/7, is non-governmental, anonymous and confidential and offers 170 languages.
In 2024, 13 cases of human trafficking were reported from Allendale, Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, and Jasper counties, according to the South Carolina Human Trafficking Task Force’s Annual Report for 2024.
The numbers break down like this:
Allendale County | 1 |
Beaufort County | 5 |
Colleton County | 2 |
Hampton County | 1 |
Jasper County | 4 |
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