DAYTONA BEACH — As her husband’s Alzheimer’s disease worsened, Jennifer Houdeshell could not leave her Deltona house to speak against human trafficking.
So, Houdeshell, an illustrator and former school art teacher who lives in Deltona, decided to let her paintings do the talking.
Some of her stark paintings capturing the anguish of human trafficking victims will be on display Wednesday when she will be recognized for "Standing in the Gap" during a meeting of the One Voice for Volusia coalition. In one painting a bar code is tattooed on a woman’s neck.
“They can tune out your words, but they can’t tune out images as easily,” Houdeshell said in a phone interview.
The meeting is one of the events locally this week for Human Trafficking Awareness Month. On Thursday, Human Trafficking Awareness Day, leaders from Daytona Beach will join social workers and community leaders for the Light the Way Walk over the International Speedway Boulevard bridge.
At the meeting, there will be a panel discussion on human trafficking. One of the panelists will be Suzanne Hirt, the News-Journal reporter, whose series about some of the long-hidden stories of local human trafficking Childhood Betrayed, published in December.
Media coverage of human trafficking is important, said Julie Barrow, executive director of One Voice for Volusia, which is sponsoring the panel.
“With (Hirt) doing that series in December we wanted her to join the panel and be able to share her experience in writing that story and the impact that has had and the kind of feedback that she has received,” Barrow said.
Besides Houdeshell, Rich and Brandi Tidwell, who started Legacy House, will also be honored for their commitment "to transform the lives of the most vulnerable women in our community," Barrow wrote in an email. Legacy House helps women who have aged out of foster care.
The 71-year-old Houdeshell, whose husband Walt died last year of lung cancer, said she used to be an art teacher at Orange City Elementary, Galaxy Middle and Pine Ridge High schools before leaving to work as an illustrator.
The subjects in her human trafficking paintings are not victims. They are typically people she knows who have agreed to serve as models but have asked that she change their appearance so they are not recognizable.
She said everyone can help in the fight against human trafficking.
“They don’t have to be able to paint paintings,” Houdeshell said. “There’s something that each person can do to help. I hope we’ll see the day when we can turn the tide and prevent human trafficking from occurring and save survivors and vanquish those who would traffic in other human beings.”
The coalition will meet at 9 a.m. Wednesday at conference rooms 516 A, B and C at the Florida Department of Health’s offices in Daytona Beach at 1845 Holsonback Drive, Daytona Beach. The walk begins at 5 p.m. Thursday. Participants should park on City Island.