RPC City Ministry Partner Spotlight: Lavish

In December of 2011, Kayla Moilanen acted on an idea she had been mulling over for a while. She and a group of friends bought scarves, wrapped them as Christmas gifts, and took them into a strip club to give to the women working there. She still remembers the reaction the gift got from one woman.

“A woman said to me ‘This is the only gift I will receive this Christmas,’” Kayla recalls. “She said ‘No one cares about us here, they only care about what we can do for them.’ That broke my heart, and I knew in that moment this was not a one-time outreach, this was going to be more.” 

Lavish was born a month later, in 2012, with a mission to reach women working in the sex industry in San Antonio with a message of their value and worth. In monthly trips to strip clubs, volunteers hand out small gifts with an invitation to coffee or a dinner and support group tucked inside, a lot like that first trip to a club. But as Lavish began building relationships with women who took them up on the offer, it became clear that once a woman responded to an invitation, the real work was only just beginning.

Seven years later, Lavish now reaches 175 women with gifts every month and in 2018 provided some form of support or advocacy to 40 women. Since its simple beginning, Lavish has made large strides in building programs and services they can extend to women, whether they simply need someone to talk to or want to get out of the industry.

Leaving the sex industry, Kayla says, typically takes up to two years and is riddled with practical obstacles for women, many of whom lack other job history and may need social services to stay afloat while they look for other work. Through church, business and nonprofit partnerships, Lavish is able to connect women with a church, counseling, legal assistance, grants and scholarships to pursue education and career planning, financial assistance and transitional living expenses. Women can also be paired with an advocate from Lavish to help them pursue a plan of action based on their goals.

"We never tell a woman she has to leave the industry,” Kayla says. “When she comes to us, most likely she wants out. She knows this is not the best case scenario for her life, and she’s looking for someone to love and support her and help her get what she needs." 

Of the eight clubs that Lavish teams started visiting regularly in 2012 , four have since been shut down in trafficking investigations, underscoring a reality Lavish tries to highlight in its community education programs —  there are many ways to become trapped in the industry, and most women are experiencing some form of abuse or coercion, whether they are fully aware of it or not. A high percentage of women who have worked in the industry have suffered sexual assault. Mentors with Lavish enter into each relationship with the awareness that trust must be built before they will be invited into the full story of a woman’s life.

“They will not identify as exploited,” Kayla says. “There is so much going on in that woman’s life that you are probably not going to know about for a year. We look at this as a long term partnership with this woman. When she’s never had anyone to trust, it’s a big responsibility to be the lifeline.”

While the work starts with a small gesture, Kayla says the real work of Lavish is creating for women the circles of trusted people they have never had, and partnerships with churches like Redeemer play a big role in that.

“We are part of that circle, but we are not the whole circle,” she says. “Our church and business and nonprofit partners are also making up that circle. It takes a village to help restore someone who has never had healthy people around them.”

You can support Lavish by coming to a Packing Party hosted by Redeemer on Wednesday, September 25^th at 7 p.m. in the Fellowship. Sign up HERE to help pack gifts for Lavish volunteers to take to clubs and learn more about opportunities to serve with Lavish. The next evening, September 26^th, you are invited to "A Night in Her Shoes" a gala benefitting Lavish. Purchase tickets HERE.