(5 of 5) “I think of my sister every second that we’re out there. Every girl that we talk to, I see her. Every girl we recover, I see her. I see a part of her in all of them. And that’s her legacy. It’s how her light continues to shine. I get really emotional talking about it because I miss her and think about her all the time.

“When her son’s trial was going on, the media portrayed Nita as this drug addict, which she wasn’t anymore. They portrayed her as this prostitute and whore, this horrible person. It’s important for people to understand that they are forced into this life. These girls are not horrible people. There is a story behind each and every one of them that needs to be told.

“I used to say that my sister was a survivor of human trafficking. But I kind of look back now and think, she never really survived. Her trafficker’s child killed her because of what her trafficker put in his head.

“To see the girls we’re able to recover, and to watch as they begin the process of healing and rebuilding their lives, it’s more than incredible. I feel so blessed to be part of this, part of my sister’s dream.”

— Betty Simons

Learn more about Nita Marie’s Angels.

Related:

• Pregnant mom’s life ends at hands of her son

• She fights in aftermath of sister’s death

• Nita’s Angels fights for trafficked girls

• It’s safety first when working on the streets

The post Sister’s light shines through work of Nita’s Angels appeared first on The Baytown Project.

(3 of 5) “In May 2015, my sister came to me and said that she was starting an organization. She was going to call it Nita’s Angels. She wanted to help girls like herself who were being trafficked. She told me, ‘I don’t want to see other children have to go through what I went through.’ So I said, ‘Whatever help you need, let’s do it.’

“We were excited about it. In June she started filing paperwork to get her 501(c) status. But in September, she was killed. She never got to see the organization get off the ground and start doing the work. I knew I couldn’t let this end with her death. So I decided to continue Nita’s Angels.

“For 4 1/2 years, from the time she died to when my nephew finally went to trial, I did a lot of volunteer work with anti-trafficking organizations to learn as much as I could. About a week after the trial, I started filing all the paperwork and putting together our program. We got our 501(c) status last year, and we’ve been going strong ever since.

“We partner a lot with with an organization called The Entity Haven. We go to Houston trafficking hot spots two or three times a week, from about 9 p.m. until 3 or 4 in the morning. We do outreach where we provide drinks, snacks, condoms, hand warmers and things like that for girls who come up to us. And we just have conversations with them.

“If they are adults, our goal is to get them out of their situation and into programs that help start to rebuild their lives in safe locations. We don’t ever try to force them out. Their traffickers are often drug dealers and gang members, so there’s a real fear factor. If they want to exit, they will volunteer that information to us. It’s a decision they have to make when they’re ready.

“I’m proud to say that we’ve had some pretty good success. In the last month alone, we’ve helped quite a few girls exit and begin rebuilding their lives. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what Nita wanted.”

— Betty Simons

They also help trafficked minors, working with family members and the Houston Police Department.

Related:

• Pregnant mom’s life ends at hands of her son

• She fights in aftermath of sister’s death

• It’s safety first when working on the streets

• Sister’s light shines through work of Nita’s Angels

The post Nita’s Angels fights for trafficked girls appeared first on The Baytown Project.

(1 of 5) “My sister, Nita, and I grew up in an abusive home. We were both in and out of the system, she more than I. She went to the Chimney Rock in Houston when she was 14. It’s a CPS placement for adolescent teens. A lot of recruitment goes on there. That’s how she met her trafficker. She ended up being trafficked from age 14 to 21. She also got pregnant by one of her traffickers, and had a child at 17.

“When she finally got out, there was this whole process to begin healing and try to move on. Back then, people would look at her as just this teenage prostitute with a pimp. Human trafficking wasn’t really talked about. It didn’t have the platform it has now. There wasn’t a lot of help for her. There wasn’t a lot of hope. So she did go through some drug addiction and trying to heal herself.

“She lost custody of her son. He went to our abusers and then to his father, who was her trafficker. It was a bad situation. But my sister fought tooth and nail for years to get her son back. She eventually did in December 2014. He was 14.

“Having lived with our abusers, he went through abuse himself. And because he was with his father, the trafficker, he grew up not really respecting his mother. When Nita got her son, he was doing drugs. He was out of control. He was violent. But all she wanted was to help him, to get him back on track.

“In September 2015, Nita was 17 weeks pregnant. Her son had been back with her for about nine months when one day, she asked him to help her paint a cabinet. That led to an argument. He ended up stabbing her 57 times. She survived the attack, so he wrapped an electrical cord around her throat and strangled her. Her unborn child also died.”

— Betty Simons

Nita Marie Moseley died on Sept. 26, 2015, at age 33.

Related:

• She fights in aftermath of sister’s death

• Nita’s Angels fights for trafficked girls

• It’s safety first when working on the streets

• Sister’s light shines through work of Nita’s Angels

The post Pregnant mom’s life ends at hands of her son appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“After my transplant, I had scans every six months. Since I had two little nodules of cancer in my original liver, they wanted to make sure it didn’t come back.

“Meanwhile, they discovered that my bile duct and the donor’s bile duct never matched up properly. Bile started leaking into my body, and it’s like poison. They couldn’t find a permanent fix, so I had stents replaced in my bile duct every three months for a year. During a scan they found a problem with my portal vein, so I had to get a permanent stent for that.

“Then last summer, I started getting really bad headaches. And all of a sudden, I would get a fever. They thought it was an infection, so they gave me antibiotics. But it kept happening. I also was having pain in my side. When they did another scan, they found a problem with the portal vein stent. I needed surgery to fix it.

“When I woke up in the ICU, so many family members were there. My husband was there with my daughters, plus my brother, all my sisters and my nieces. I didn’t know what was going on. The ICU doctor came in and said, ‘Everything’s OK for right now, until we have your second surgery.’ And I just looked at him.

“I couldn’t talk because I was intubated. They had my hands strapped down so I wouldn’t pull the tube out. I began pounding my hands for them to unstrap me. When they unstrapped one of my hands, I motioned for them to give me something to write with. The first thing I wrote was, ‘What surgery?’ with a big question mark.

“It turned out the stent that was put in earlier had punctured my portal vein, gone into the bile duct, and messed up several other veins. So when they opened me up and saw that mess, they stitched me back up quickly and said I needed another transplant immediately. I was a ticking time bomb ready to explode.

“The scariest part was seeing all my family there. They thought they were going to lose me.”

— RoxAnn Cruz-Martinez

RoxAnn comes from a family of eight. Her parents and oldest brother have passed away.

Related:

• Her birthday present: a new liver

• Bullrider loses his life, but lets her live

The post ‘They thought they were going to lose me’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“We not only shared a room growing up, we had to share a bed for as long as I can remember. I guess that’s just what our parents had for us. So we were pretty close. I shared her clothes all the time.”

“I started working at Dairy Queen, so I would buy my own clothes and everything.”

“And they were cool, so I wore them, too.”

“We eventually moved down here for Dad’s job. But while he and Mom came down first, they let me finish out my school year back in Indiana. I was just turning 16, and the two of us lived together in our family’s house for four or five months. She’s five years older than me, so I guess our parents trusted her.”

“I was almost 21 and had a 2-year-old child by then. So I had to work hard and make some money. She babysat in the evenings because I would work all kinds of hours. She was left alone with my daughter a lot of the time. But it was just kind of how it had to be.”

“I had obligations, so I couldn’t do some of the things that I normally did, like gymnastics and cheerleading. But it was fine. It was what family did for family, you know?”

— Cara Protain and Beth McAuliffe

Related:

• Crafty sisters inherit creative instincts from parents

The post Sharing sisters remain close in new business venture appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“As kids in Indiana, we lived in five houses. Our parents would finish remodeling one and we’d move on to the next. Growing up, five years was the longest we ever lived in one place. It got to the point where we’d be watching them go from room to room, fixing things up. And when they reached that final room we’d go, ‘They’re almost done. We’re going to move again.’ Dad was a handyman. He liked fixing stuff. He did the carpentry, and Mom would paint and decorate a little bit. They put their imprint on each home. We definitely picked up things from watching them.

“When he had time, Dad did oil paintings. Mom was artistic as well. She could draw and paint, and she was always making stuff for things like graduations and weddings. She enjoyed making gifts special and doing something unique. Like one year at Christmas, my grandfather needed a new pair of shoes. So Mom got one of those old Fisher-Price toys that looked like a shoe. It was the old woman who lived in a shoe. Well, Mom decorated it really cute and put money inside, I think, and that’s how she presented my grandfather with his Christmas present. That’s just one example of the things she would do. I guess we got a lot of our creativity from her.”

— Cara Protain and Beth McAuliffe

Related:

• Sharing sisters remain close in new business venture

The post Crafty sisters inherit creative instincts from parents appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I remember when I was young, my mom would write all of her kids’ names down on paper. She had this beautiful handwriting. She also would draw a flower over and over, the same flower. She drew only with an ink pen. It’s a pretty big deal for an artist if you can draw with an ink pen and not make mistakes, every single time.

“Me being the oldest of six kids, I was able to see all of that. A lot of my sisters and brothers didn’t because we were taken from my mom when we were young. She had her problems with addictions and things. It’s unfortunate because I feel like if she had kept pursuing it, she could have become a really talented artist. If she had pushed the line with her abilities, she could have gone somewhere. But she was afraid to do things that she had never tried before.

“It didn’t dawn on me until I was older that I kind of carried my mom’s artistic trait. And I feel like I’m kind of living through her. Like everything that my mind tells me to be afraid of or to not take on, I take it on. I push myself to try new things. I think that’s what has helped make me a well-rounded artist.

“I wish my mom could be here today to see the man that I’ve become, the artist that I’ve become. She got sick with kidney disease, and she eventually passed when I was 26. I also lost my little brother when he was 13. He was shot numerous times out in California, where we grew up. Those are the things that help drive me, that help inspire me.

“I have a lot of fire in me, man. I have a lot of fire and passion to just keep going, to keep getting better with my art.”

— Welton Williams, 34

Related:

• ‘Wherever my heart takes me, that’s where I go’
• Artist continues work on his confidence and craft
• Artist’s hands help mend a grandfather’s heart

The post Deaths of brother and mother inspire artist appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“There were nine kids total, seven girls and two boys. The three of us have always been real close. Growing up we never fought. We never got spanked. We were pretty good kids. Overall, we’ve really been blessed. There are a lot of families that don’t get along so well.”

How did your parents manage with such a large family?
“We grew up in Cuero, Texas, the turkey capital of the world. We lived out in the country. Our dad was a rancher. He had cows and pigs, and grew cotton, vegetables and other things. We didn’t know we were poor. Maybe we didn’t have everything we wanted, but we had everything we needed.”

— Sisters Molly Higgins, Jane Shuhart and Cris Davis

The post Family of nine kids ‘had everything we needed’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

(Left) “When school starts I’m planning to unenroll so I can enroll in my GED classes. I didn’t drop out. I want my high school diploma, but it’s just taking too long. I want to hurry up and get my degree so I can get a freakin’ good job.”

What led you to this decision?
“I was taking pre-AP classes and I was going to IMPACT (Early College High School), but I was having a hard time waking up at 5 in the morning to go to school. I was struggling, and my headaches started getting so bad that I couldn’t sleep at night. I had to have everything pitch black and super cold in the room. Toward the end of the year, I started going late or missing school a lot. I just decided that getting my GED is the better way to go for me.”

(Right) “I’m planning to continue in school, graduate and then join the Army. I don’t want to be fighting. I want to be a nurse. Then, when I get out after a few years, I want to become a prenatal nurse.”

Why choose the Army?
“You get to travel around for free. I love the idea of traveling, although I haven’t been able to do it because we really don’t have the money. I’d like to travel all over the world. Eventually, I’d like to live in Europe.”

— Heather and Holli Coker

The post Sisters choose different post-high school paths appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I got polio when I was a year old and had a number of surgeries. The last one was in 1989 when they fused my ankle because my foot was turning in.

“Growing up, I always used braces or crutches. I didn’t like wearing my braces, so I never wore dresses or shorts. I always wore jeans. I never got to wear high heels. Other than that, I did pretty well.

“When I was in the hospital, I met a lot of people who were in wheelchairs or bedridden. I was one of the lucky ones who was actually able to walk.”

How are you doing today?
“Polio never really goes away. Walking is the hardest part for me now. I have to be really, really careful. I don’t have too much strength in my hand anymore and I have to use a cane. But I think I’m in a good place overall.

“I have two grown kids who are married, and I get to take care of my 4-month-old grandbaby. Plus, the two of us hang out a lot. We’re always trying to do new things together.”

— Viola Elias

The post Polio hasn’t stopped her from enjoying life appeared first on The Baytown Project.