A bright light working to solve one of society’s darkest problems — human trafficking — Bronda Hayes doesn’t let anything get her down. As the Central Texas Assistant Regional Director of Programs for Unbound Waco, an organization that fights human trafficking locally, she helps people in the worst circumstances find their way to freedom and a fresh start. And in her newest role as president-elect of Junior League of Waco, she’s empowering even more women to learn skills that can take their lives to the next level through leadership and service.
Tell me about your connection to Waco. Did you grow up here?
I’m a Waco native. I love this community. My family’s here, all my sisters, so I get to see my nephews grow up. Everybody’s kind of migrated back here. We’re in family group chats all day every day. I love it. I get to be part of those fun moments with my nephews, getting to see one’s first year in high school — the first high school football games and all of that. It’s been really sweet.
What are your favorite things about Waco?
I think it’s a friendly community. I get to work in other communities and people here are just friendly and willing to help. People love to come together and serve and work together to solve a problem or fix something. I love that we’re so connected. I love the way Waco is growing, but it still has kind of that small feel to it. When I’m out, I might see 10 people that I know in a place and I love that.
One way you’ve enjoyed building community is through the Junior League of Waco. And starting in May, you’ll be the first Black president of the organization here as it kicks off its 90th year. What does that mean you?
I think it opens the doors and it takes away that stereotype of what Junior League is and isn’t. It’s a service organization in Waco. We serve our community. Probably 85% of the people in Junior League work outside the home. There’s always been a shortage of people of color in Junior League. I want people to feel like they belong and that they do have a place here and that this is something they can do.
That’s an empowering message.
We do a Women’s Empowerment Summit where we partner with Waco ISD and offer girls a conference day with breakout sessions on applying for college, etiquette class and more. They have a luncheon with a keynote speaker, and they get to hear from women in the community who are strong and successful business owners and people who run nonprofits. I love for young girls in the community to see that change can happen and they can be the one to change it.
I was going to ask your favorite Junior League project, but I think that must be it!
Empowerment Summit is my favorite event, but then of course, Deck the Halls is our big fundraiser, which is what funds all of our community events. I’m super excited that we moved to the BASE this year and it was great. We love the new space and want to bring in more shoppers and raise more money to give to these other organizations that could use some support. Because I work for a nonprofit, I know that organizations are in the thick of it. We want to be able to give something towards that to help them and serve them as well. And that will help us identify a bigger project for one of these organizations that we can grow.
You’re excited for the growth.
I want to grow it and I want to refresh it. I want people to be excited about us coming to support them and being a part of it. We have a hand in everything in our community that we can and that’s what we’re here for. Every penny that we make goes right back into our community, it doesn’t go to us. We also do trainings to develop our members professionally in how to run a nonprofit. We want people to walk away with something when they’re done with their time in the League; with some skills and some best friends. We want them to be able to take their business to the next level. Many people who own businesses in our community, who run nonprofits in our community, who are sitting on boards or on City Council — they probably are products of Junior League. If I hadn’t been in Junior League, I wouldn’t have known how to plan fundraising events and that sort of thing. Now I could probably throw an event in my sleep.
What path led you to Unbound Now?
I actually worked in healthcare for a long time. I’ve worked for an Alzheimer’s center and did staffing and HR. I’ve worked for a nonprofit hospice organization for eight years, so I was able to do some marketing and education in the community there. One day I was at a conference at our church and I heard Susan Peters, the founder of Unbound, speak about the work she was doing, and I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, what’s happening here? In our city?’
That human trafficking takes place right here — and everywhere — is a shocking reality.
Yes. I thought, ‘I’ve got to do something.’ So I started volunteering. I volunteered for probably six years before I even came on staff and that was sort of my transition from healthcare. I started working for my church for a year in a reading program. At the time, Susan needed people to run the Waco office while she went into the CEO role to merge all of our offices together. She has Kristi Hayes and me — they call us the Hayes Sisters — leading the Waco team. But now we are overseeing the Waco and Austin team, so Central Texas.
You have a history of working in compassionate care.
I feel like I’ve always tried to do something with a purpose. My work always has led me to something I’m passionate about and that I love and want to do — someplace I’m excited to go every day. It’s kind of like those doors have just opened. I’ve ended up in these positions where I get to do something I really love where I’m serving people.
In your work, you want to really feel something, it sounds like.
There’s a lot of days that we’re doing fundraising, the daily things. But then I get to stop and hear something one of our advocates has encountered with a client or something that’s happened with one of the girls in The Reagan. We see girls come in and they’re broken. They’re in a really dark place and they come from really hard places. When I see the outcome of it or how we’ve helped them or that small win that we fought for, then I’m like, ‘That’s why we do this.’
Tell me about The Reagan.
The Reagan is our home for girls who’ve been trafficked or exploited. It’s girls age 12 to 17 and they can live there for up to a year or longer if they need to. They’re working on everything from getting their academics or their education back on track. They are learning life skills, like planning for their future and what’s next. Through counseling and nurture groups they’re learning coping skills and how to deal with hard things. They’re just kind of getting to hit the reset button on their lives. It’s really sweet to see them come in there dark and really angry and not wanting to be there or not understanding why they’re there — and then to see that light come in their eyes because we’ve never seen it in their eyes the whole time they’ve been there. That’s when we know, you’re going to be OK.
How many girls live in the house?
Right now, we can have six girls. We did it small on purpose from the beginning because we want to do it right. First of all, it’s incredibly expensive. But we also wanted to make sure we built a program that we could replicate and open other places because there’s a shortage of housing. The Reagan is a safe place where these girls can go and heal. When Kristi and I were working on getting The Reagan off the ground — well, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I will not lie. It stretched every skill I have. But I love it. I love hearing that the girls are getting to play basketball and volleyball at school — Methodist Children’s Home — doing things as a normal kid because there’s been a chunk of their childhood that’s been taken away from them.
You mentioned, initially, being in disbelief that a program like this would even be needed in your town. How many people are you serving, beyond The Reagan? And in what ways?
We served over 150 clients last year in Waco. We have advocates who work one-on-one with survivors and victims of trafficking every day. They’re helping them find jobs, sitting in court with them if they have to face their traffickers, teaching life skills and helping them establish medical care. They also answer their crisis calls 24/7. Last year, we received over 700 calls on our crisis response line alone. It’s nights, weekends, holidays.
How are you working to prevent people from becoming victims?
We go out and do prevention trainings in the community and in our schools. I’ll do trainings for hotel staff and any professionals who want someone to come and do a human trafficking 101 so people know what to look for and what to do if they suspect something. We work with prosecution and protection — that’s the DA’s office and law enforcement coming together to case studies to figure out where we have missed the mark and what we can do better.
It’s a question with a complicated answer, but: Who are the typical victims of human trafficking?
Anyone with a vulnerability. Traffickers look for the unmet needs and desires of their victims. People who are unhoused or homeless, kids in the foster care system, the loners who don’t have a lot of friends or they’re isolated. They look for that person who needs a place to stay, or who doesn’t have any friends. Then they make that connection and they are building that trust and they’re grooming them.
We did a training with the sheriff’s office and they showed how easy it is online for someone to be targeted. At 10 a.m., he put in a group in a regular chat room — not the deep, dark web — ‘15-year-old female / bored.’ Within 10 seconds the inbox was lighting up with, ‘Hey, you wanna meet up? Send me a picture, this and that, send me a naked picture.’ Your first question for a 15-year-old female who says she’s bored should be, ‘Why aren’t you in school?’ So anybody with any kind of vulnerability, low self-esteem, any of those things can be targeted easily because they’re preying on those unmet desires.
You’re such an upbeat person. How do you stay positive working with what seems like an insurmountable problem that involves so much pain for innocent victims?
I am really rooted in my faith. But also, I have hope. I mean, we have this organization serving 46 counties in Texas and we have people fighting this every day. When I see these positive things that are happening in their lives and they’re overcoming this, it gives me such hope because if we can help one, we can help another. Just knowing that there are like-minded people. Our whole organization, nobody’s in it for just a paycheck. They’re in it because they’re fighting for that one person. They’re fighting for that mom who was vulnerable and was probably victimized herself. They’re fighting for that 12-year-old girl that comes into The Reagan, and she’s been to 10 different foster homes before she came there, and she was exploited by her mom. So I have hope that the seeds that we’re planting will change their lives. That keeps me going.
Do you ever get mad?
Sometimes reading some of the referrals that come in and looking through paperwork, you think, ‘How could someone do this to this innocent child’ — and it really makes you mad. But when we get to see our DA’s office fighting for justice and slapping those 99 to life sentences on them, we’re like, ‘Let’s do it.’ They deserve it. Not that I’m like Pollyanna, thinking everything’s all good. It really sucks some days. It is really, really hard. But we have a great team and we can lean on each other, support each other. We’re there to talk things through. Debriefing with our staff is something that’s really hard. But we have an amazing group of people we’re working with here in Waco — and all of our other offices are also out there fighting just as hard.
How can people get involved with Unbound? What’s the most important thing people can do right now to help?
They can go to our website and do some of the trainings on there. And obviously we need monthly givers, donations. We are a nonprofit, so our funds come from people in the community supporting our events. We [had] our 5K in April and our gala coming up in June. We also have different fundraisers throughout the year, so people can get involved by sponsoring and donating.
What about volunteering and donations of items for the Reagan?
They can go to our website and go to the ‘Volunteer’ tab and then see what opportunities we have available. We need food to fill the snack cabinet and we have different snacks that we have for kids who have food insecurity and that sort of thing. We always need snacks and toiletries for the girls. If it’s not donated, then we purchase it and that comes out of our funds that we raise. Or people can reach out waco@unboundnow.org and then that comes directly to me.
Is there someone that your life has been a role model or an inspiration to you who’s made you the compassionate person you are?
My family. We’ve always been a family of service. We — my sisters, my mom, my aunt — have always, even from a young age, served the community. We served our church, and we still do it as a family now. So really, I guess it comes from my grandmother. She instilled a life of service in us.
What’s something about you that people might not know at first glance?
I’m kind of introverted. I don’t think people will realize that because my job is outpacing me.
But I need my time to recharge. I need my downtime.
You mentioned your faith. Do you have a favorite scripture that helps you in your work and in life?
My favorite scripture that I have been focused on lately has been Proverbs 3:5-6. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.”
What kind of things do you do for self-care, which I imagine you need in your line of work?
I like to walk. We do that at work. We’ll walk around the neighborhood that we work in, if we also need to walk off some things. But I like to walk with friends or take a hike. There’s nothing like walking and talking. I like watching random crime shows and cop shows, like ‘Law and Order,’ ‘Criminal Minds’ and ‘FBI.’ I love to bake.
What’s your baking specialty?
I bake cupcakes and cakes. I always do cupcakes for our monthly staff meeting and I’ve just recently learned how to make bagels — real bagels, boiling them, baking them, everything.
It took me some tries to get it right — and then I started bringing them to work. Now everyone’s like, ‘Are you going to bring some more bagels?’ Baking is therapeutic for me. I’m teaching my nephews to bake too. I love them getting in the kitchen with me.
What would you like to tell young women — in a world that feels like such a crazy place, like a divided place — about reaching for their dreams, despite all the noise?
I want young women to know that they can do anything they want to do. They can step into whatever world they want to step into. Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t. You are enough. Stand up for what’s right. Keep pushing forward. You can do it. Taking another woman under your wing is one of the best things you could do — even if you’re a high school kid. Help that freshman girl, mentor someone, connect with someone, help someone. Talk about people when they’re not in the room. Tell someone, ‘Hey, this person would be amazing for this job or this position.’ Recommend people, help empower other women to reach their dreams and their full potential.
We all should all be doing more of that.
That’s what it’s all about. If I can make a couple of phone calls — what an amazing network that is — people support each other. We just had our meeting kicking off Deck the Halls and the excitement in the room and people with their fresh ideas — I almost cried just sitting there listening to the new chairs talking about their ideas. The other girls were chiming in and it was amazing. All I could say was ‘Thank y’all for saying yes to leadership.’ So, I would also tell women: Say yes to leadership. Don’t ever doubt yourself. If someone asks you, they’re asking you for a reason. Even if you don’t know everything, you’ll figure it out.
