BALTIMORE COUNTY — One visit from GBMC's SAFE team ended with a high school student committed to helping sexual assault and domestic violence survivors.
Supporting survivors of sexual assault, human trafficking, domestic violence, and more—that's what GBMC's Sexual Assault Forensic Examination and Domestic Violence Program, also known as the Safe & DV Program, is all about.
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When the team visited Hereford High School a couple years ago, student Karolina Minasyan instantly became intrigued.
“The overall support they give to the community was very present and admirable because they service a lot of areas other than just the Baltimore area; like, if anyone wants to come, they can really get good service and a proper examination with no questions asked," Minasyan said.
Now a senior, she knew exactly what to do for her Eagle Scout project.
“I raised upwards of $500 in my local community and created over 150 bravery bags, which were filled with different toiletries like toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, hairbrushes.”
The work helped her gain her Eagle Scout certification.
Kelly Truax, Community Outreach Coordinator with the SAFE team, said it was exceptional.
“What Karolina did was just amazing; just having the bags themselves helped us out tremendously, and then to have them already stocked with things we provide our patients—it was just an incredible donation she provided not just us but the patients that we treat," Truax said.
Minasyan told WMAR-2 News how it felt to provide so much help.
“It made me feel very powerful in that sense because I knew that I’m just a teenager and to be able to do a project like that on my own and impact the community in that way was very inspiring, not only to myself but also to younger scouts and students around me.”
Moving forward, the SAFE team became a community partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
“We started recognizing that some of our patients, they were coming in and they were younger and younger, and we said we need to get to these children before high school.”
The team can now show their presentations at middle and elementary schools.
On April 17, they'll hold their Walk A Mile In Their Shoes event to bring the community together to walk in solidarity with the victims and survivors.
Head here for more information and here for how you can help the SAFE program with its mission.
