BREMERTON — Scarlet Road, a local nonprofit that helps women and girls in the Kitsap Peninsula escape sexual exploitation, has opened a drop-in site in downtown Bremerton.

“It was really a blessing to us from a local community member who owns the building,” said Victoria Ahlfors, director of outreach for Scarlet Road. “He had found out about the work that we do and decided to donate us the space for a year.”

Scarlet Road moved into the building in April and has painted, organized the site and done what was needed to be able to serve women and girls in the best way possible, Ahlfors said. The organization has been working out of the location for about a month and a half.

“Out of this location, we run our outreach meetings and our case management meetings with our clients,” Ahlfors said. “We have our board meetings here, community events … it’s pretty much just a hub for (many) Scarlet Road events and meetings and interactions with our clients.”

On Dec. 3, Scarlet Road hosted an open house for the community, giving tours and presentations to people to help educate them on what Scarlet Road does and how people can help. Ahlfors said more than 50 people attended, and though she expected people to basically get a tour, watch the presentation and leave, “almost every single person stayed for about an hour” afterward to meet with the board and staff.

“It was just a really encouraging time,” she said.

Scarlet Road helps women and girls in Kitsap and North Mason counties escape sexual exploitation and prevent it from happening in the future.

“First, we start with outreach,” Ahlfors said.

Teams from Scarlet Road will visit high school and junior high/middle schools to present their preventative curricula, a two-day course given once a year.

“There, we just really open up the conversation to youth, allow them to ask real questions and, at the end, report if they know anyone who has been sexually exploited or if they’ve been sexually exploited,” Ahlfors said. “From there, my teams also go out into the streets, into the community.”

Teams help train social service providers on how best to help people in that situation or how to properly report it.

A person who needs help escaping exploitation can be referred to Scarlet Road’s after-care program, where they are connected to a case manager who helps them reach technical goals such as getting counseling, paying court fees, education, etc., and a mentor who provides relational support.

“Every single one of our clients have different situations, different goals, different challenges,” Ahlfors said, “so we kind of just try to really listen to the desires of each of our clients and help them get where they need to be in order to be successful, in order to be stable.”

She said there’s no time limit on how long a client can be helped by Scarlet Road.

“We understand that every single person’s journey is going to be different,” Ahlfors said. “Some we’ll support for three months, some over a year.”

Ultimately, Ahlfors said Scarlet Road has one goal: “Our whole purpose is to offer the hope of freedom to those who have been sexually exploited.”

Ahlfors said Scarlet Road is a nonprofit organization and thus relies on community support to remain open. There are always volunteer opportunities (learn more by emailing pavingtheway@scarletroad.org); donations are accepted online (scarlet road.org).

She said they plan to hold another couple of open houses at their new Bremerton location (1222 Park Ave.) in 2017, for people who couldn’t make the first one during the holiday season.

Learn more about Scarlet Road at scarletroad.org.

Michelle Beahm is a reporter for the Central Kitsap Reporter and Bremerton Patriot. She can be reached at mbeahm@soundpublishing.com.

Victoria Ahlfors, outreach coordinator for Scarlet Road, stands in front of the donor appreciation wall at the new Scarlet Road location in downtown Bremerton. Michelle Beahm / Kitsap News Group