Night runners offer women dignity, support
The sun was setting as the runners made their way west on Broad Street, the lights strapped to their heads shining like beacons.
On a mission of outreach, pastor John Moriarty's group leisurely passed storefronts as dusk approached, while the Hilltop fire station where they had started on this recent Saturday receded in the distance.
Just after 8 p.m., the four runners made their first connection: two women on the corner of Ogden Avenue near a gas station.
One told the volunteers she had relapsed on heroin that day and insisted she'd check herself into a clinic on Monday. The runners offered a prayer and purses filled with hygiene products before pressing on.
If anyone asked what they were up to, Moriarty had a simple answer: “We’re just out here supporting women.”
It's a refrain that helps the volunteers who are part of Moriarty's aptly named Light Brigade break the ice with the women they approach. Many are addicted to drugs. Some work as prostitutes to pay for their next high. But all deserve love and support, Moriarty said.
“We want to hopefully bring some hope and communicate that these women are also valued by God and God has a heart for them,” said Moriarty, 57, a part-time pastor at Chapel on the Vine in Westerville, where he lives with his wife of 33 years.
“This way, they know there’s people out there that care about them, and that can go a long way.”
Every Saturday night since June 24, the Light Brigade has ventured into neighborhoods where women are known to work the streets. Moriarty and fellow volunteers offer prayer, the hygiene products and a referral to a safe place to stay.
Most of the women welcome the helping hand, he said.
Local advocates see the outreach as an important first step in helping people get off the streets.
“We want to show the women that we care,” said Barbara Freeman, a survivor of human trafficking and the founder of the Freeman Project, a nonprofit group that seeks to house and help women escaping sexual exploitation.
Freeman helped train Light Brigade volunteers in the best way to approach women on the streets. A tip of hers that they always follow: One or two female volunteers are first to make contact. Moriarty initially hangs back.
The effort is part of his nonprofit group, called Sparrow’s Hope. It is a member of the Salvation Army-managed Central Ohio Rescue and Restore Coalition, which fights human trafficking.
An experienced marathon runner, Moriarty began his ministry in January with a 1,000-mile run over 34 days in India, which ranks among the worst nations in the world for human slavery. He was part of an international team of nine that ran from Mumbai to Chennai to raise awareness of the issue, speaking at schools and drawing news coverage along the way.
“We live in kind of a sheltered existence in terms of not realizing the reality that kids are kidnapped, kids are bought from their parents,” he said.
When Moriarty returned home in February, he wanted to do something to continue his efforts in central Ohio, where human trafficking is also a problem. The state attorney general’s office reported that there have been 535 human trafficking victims in Ohio since 2014; in 2016 alone, 117 of the 151 victims were female.
For advice about how to help, Moriarty turned to his friend Jennifer Kempton, a trafficking survivor and the founder of Survivor’s Ink, which helps women who were tattooed or otherwise scarred by their pimps. Kempton, who recently passed away, suggested running in areas known to be plagued by drugs and prostitution to offer support to women.
The flashlight bands that members of the Light Brigade wear symbolize the hope they bring in the dark, Moriarty said.
Twenty-five people have signed up with the group to date, and each outing has drawn from four to nine runners.
So far, the group has run in Franklinton, the Hilltop and Westgate, but as the Light Brigade grows, Moriarty plans to expand to South Linden, the South Side and the East Side.
The volunteers also hope to slowly gain women’s trust as they return to neighborhoods.
“You have to earn the right to be heard,” said Jill Marrah of the Northwest Side, who has been part of every run. “Then you can actually help them.”
Marrah, who said the ministry has “given me a great sense of purpose,” distinctly recalls one interaction among the countless she’s had. When Marrah asked a young lady named Rachel if she could pray for her, Rachel instead asked for prayers for her friend who had similar struggles with addiction and prostitution.
“You could tell she had a huge heart of gold,” Marrah said.
Not all the women the group reaches out to are prostitutes or addicted to drugs. During the recent Saturday run, Marrah and others connected with a young woman with pneumonia headed to a nearby hospital and another whose recent hardships included losing both her job and her grandmother.
After more than 20 blocks that night, the runners turned back to head east on the opposite side of Broad Street.
They reached the fire station just before 10 p.m., and as they gathered to evaluate the success of the outing — 15 connections made, a halfdozen purses distributed — a car pulled into the parking lot.
A plastic bag, where a back window should have been, fluttered in the wind as a small boy slept on the back seat.
The driver, who had seen the runners earlier that night, rolled down her window.
“Are you guys out here praying with people?” she asked.
Determined to do right by her son, she was eager for a few words of prayer and encouragement, even if it was from a group of strangers.
The four runners huddled around her window as Moriarty placed a hand on her head. A few moments of solemn appeals to a higher power, and she drove off into the night.
But not before the group could assure her of one last thing: This wasn’t the last she’d see of them, running up and down the street, LED beams lighting the way, helping women in need.
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