Shea Prisk remembers the day his eyes were opened to the horrors of human trafficking. He was in college at the time, attending a luncheon that featured a man from Nepal who had started a foundation to aid women and girls who had been trafficked.
“I had no context for that at the time,” he said. He admits to even being a little cynical that the women were actually victims.
But after hearing the personal details of a woman’s story, everything changed.
“At the age of 20-years-young, I excused myself from the event,” he said, and proceeded to weep in a bathroom stall. “What she was telling us, I didn’t know that kind of evil existed.”
He had just heard the story of a 12-year-old girl who was sold to 30 men a day.
Fast forward nearly 20 years and Prisk is now a pastor at Grumlaw Church, which has branches in Hartland and Grand Blanc. And he and his wife, Andrea, are the owners of Thread Creek Coffee shop, not to supplement their personal income, but to send all profits to a foundation called Our Daughters International, which is devoted to saving women and girls from sexual abuse.
“I decided when I had a job, I would start giving (to that effort),” he said.
Prisk began his working life in medical sales. “But God called me out of that, and my wife and I started a church,” he said.
Then he learned of a friend who was starting a coffee shop and an idea was born. The friend agreed to share his expertise in the coffee business.
“And it led me down this path,” Prisk said. “God kept opening doors.”
Operating on the principle of “if we build it, they will come,” Prisk said he went about establishing a coffee shop with high standards, and which operates like an ordinary business, except for a salary or profits for the owners.
“The coffee shop does very well,” he said. “And we are like any other business, we pay for salaries and supplies.”
Despite the mission, Prisk said he didn’t want the shop to be a “Christian” coffee shop. Just a nice coffee shop, with a worthwhile product at competitive prices. The company also bagged coffee online, as well as wholesale for business break rooms, church coffees, and boutique shops.
“I wanted the coffee and drinks to be the best,” he said. “And, by the way, you get to donate to a worthy cause.”
At the end of the month, the couple calculates “to the penny” what the gross profits are, and that is what goes to the Nepal organization. Prisk explained that the foundation operates at border stations in Nepal, which is a dangerous area for trafficking women and girls from throughout the region. The group facilitates getting the women and girls to safe houses before they can become victims of trafficking.
The Prisks used personal savings, as well as donations, for startup funds. They had originally planned to pay themselves back for startup costs but later decided to make that a gift to the shop.
”I heard clearly from God, ‘that’s a gift,’” he said. Now, he said, the shop is no longer requiring the couple to subsidize operations.
The shop opened in January, 2023 and has 10 employees. Prisk says the shop has provided close to $150,000 to the anti-trafficking foundation.
“The community has gotten behind us,” Prisk said. “That’s part of our success also.”
His employees tell him tips are better than previous places they have worked. “Generosity spurs generosity,” he said.
Haley Murray of Auburn, a recent customer enjoying an iced drink, visits the shop whenever she is in the area.
“I absolutely love the people that come together to this coffee shop,” she said.
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According to the Our Daughters International website, https://www.ourdaughtersinternational.org/, “An estimated 25,000 girls and women are trafficked to India from Nepal every year. Once there, they are taken captive and sold as slaves to the highest bidders from India or the Middle East.”
The group describes the mission as rescuing potential victims, keeping them safe, as well as providing mentoring, education and training for jobs. The website states the group has saved more than 16,000 from a life of being trafficked.
Thread Creek Coffee is at 10051 E Highland Road, west of the intersection of Highland Road and U.S. 23 in Shops at Waldenwoods.
