Sanctuary Project is a social enterprise jewelry brand providing meaningful employment and job training to women who have survived lives of trafficking, violence, and addiction. We are a survivor-run organization, offering a safe community for women in transition to grow in practical skills while restoring their lives and hearts. Our jewelry is designed and packaged by the women we employ, and 100% of our sales go directly to providing more job opportunity and job training to survivors.
Care for some glitz to add to your collection of awesomeness? Well, look no further than Target. We have an assortment of jewelry that’s sure to make your look pop. And the best part? You can find it at an affordable price. Our collection ranges from boho chic to festival fabulous to super posh, offering everything from gypsy-style beaded bracelets, leather wraps and statement necklaces to sophisticated arm candy, bracelets and cuffs. Rather go minimalistic? Bask in the glory of simple yet stylish necklaces and earrings sure to bring you compliments. Target also has watches galore, including rose gold watch bands. If you’re more of a fine-jewelry person, scan through our gold, silver and diamond collections to find the perfect piece for an elegant look. Our collection of wedding rings is worth a mention, too. We house a fantastic array of bridal ring sets, engagement and anniversary rings. How about on-trend fashion jewelry and straight-from-the-runway accessories? Layer a bold statement necklace over your night look for an oh-so-chic touch. We haven’t forgotten about the guys, either. Be sure to check out our dapper collection of men’s watches. Then, head over and browse through our girls’ jewelry to find something for your little fashionista. When you’re done, be sure to peruse our jewelry box selection for a stylish place to keep your treasures organized.
Sanctuary Project is a social enterprise jewelry brand providing meaningful employment and job training to women who have survived lives of trafficking, violence, and addiction. We are a survivor-run organization, offering a safe community for women in transition to grow in practical skills while restoring their lives and hearts. Our jewelry is designed and packaged by the women we employ, and 100% of our sales go directly to providing more job opportunities and training to survivors.
She also would like to have a factory where the jewelry components would be made by women who are survivors and then sent to Austin, where the women who put them together are also survivors. During that time she also reconnected with Jeff Hayes, whom she had known earlier, during a trip back to San Francisco. The friendship grew into something more, and they got married. They moved to Austin in 2017 after he got a job here. “Everything shifted in my identity and self-worth,” she says. “I saw myself as a party girl and a slut. I didn’t see myself as a victim. I thought I had made these choices.”
Having a daughter also reminds her of the preciousness of a young girl and the wound she experienced early. “I’ll be faced with it her whole life, every day,” but “I choose to be a force of light in the world.”
Because Sanctuary Project provides a safe place, all of its employees are women, and none of them have been traffickers, which can sometimes happen with women who have been trafficked.Sanctuary Project finds survivors through connections at the Travis County Jail, local nonprofit organizations and the few shelters for victims of trafficking Central Texas does have.
When she and the women talk about design, they talk about what the word “sanctuary” means to them. She goes back to the feeling she had in those churches in Europe, which inspired her to create earrings that look like cathedral windows or marble pillars.
They also have goats, chickens, Scottish Highland cows, and two Great Pyrenees. There’s a vineyard on the property, which is still too young to make wine.
About a year into the relationship, he suggested she trade sex for money with people he would set up. Her drug problem, though, eventually made her unreliable.
He kicked her out, and she became homeless at age 21. By then she had moved to Boston to study musical theater. She slept on people’s couches or would go to bars and nurse a drink until she would pick up a man to buy her drinks and take her to his home. She wore fancy clothes that she shoplifted to look good from afar, but she realizes now that up close she probably looked dirty.
That night she went up to a man who told her he didn’t drink or get high, but he did share his whole recovery story. He had been sober for three years.The woman who didn’t consider herself “a God person” later found a recovery community in a church in San Francisco and then spent three years in Paris working for a church. In Paris, she would spend time in sanctuaries of some of Europe’s grand churches. The marble, the stone, the windows inspired her.Sanctuary Project has attracted national attention. In late October, Target’s website began to sell Sanctuary Project designs. It’s a bit of a different line for Target with prices ranging from $22 to $58 instead of their typical $8-to-$30 range for jewelry.Before COVID-19, Hayes was teaching classes in the jail, and sometimes women didn’t even realize they were being trafficked by their boyfriend, husband or other family member. Once Hayes shares her own journey and what it means to be trafficked, she says, “they realize they were trafficked. The tears flow.”
The business itself is a sanctuary: giving women their first job after being sexually trafficked, which Hayes defines as being made to perform a commercial sex act by force, fraud or coercion.The entry-level job isn’t glamorous on purpose: They start by putting together jewelry such as earrings onto hooks or pendants on chains. Then they move into packaging and processing orders. “It’s a really low bar for entry,” Hayes says.
Hayes herself didn’t really understand what was happening to her when she began to be trafficked, and her story is not what many people might think of when they think about someone who has been trafficked.“They understood our vision,” Hayes says, to create something beautiful, of value, and to have women who didn’t feel their own self-worth begin doing the healing to feel it.
She also was volunteering at Travis County Jail, which is where she found her first workforce. When the project started 2 1/2 years ago in her kitchen, it was just a couple of women she met at the jail, she says.
Since Hayes, 41, founded Sanctuary Project in February 2018, the business has given 20 women more than 10,000 hours of employment, but more importantly, Hayes says, it’s given them “a safe place to land,” a place to start “a life of recovery,” “where they can start to pursue their dreams.”
By middle school, Hayes began acting out. When she was 14 and a freshman in high school, she went to a party, got drunk, did drugs and was raped by three different boys.
It took time. She went to daily meetings and was able to talk a former roommate into letting her stay on her couch. When she was 30 days sober, she was able to reconnect with her mother.
She kept getting into dangerous situations and choosing bad relationships, looking for someone who would take care of her. She met her trafficker, whom she thought of as a boyfriend, when she was 19. He encouraged her to cut off all of her relationships with friends and family.Sanctuary Project teaches life skills, provides mentorship, coaches the women on recovery and gives them the experience of working a job and a job reference. Most women who have been trafficked have a criminal background because of being sold for sex and/or substance abuse. For her, the big vision is to one day add a residential shelter that helps women who are older. Many of the current shelters focus on children who have been trafficked. Most of the women are either living in a safe house or with supportive family members. Hayes tries to make sure they are not feeling the pressure of rent, which might make them more likely to return to their trafficker.Today, Hayes is providing that sanctuary for women like herself, women who need a chance to rebuild their lives, a chance that she was given through a job shining shoes.Austin was the start of something new for Holly Hayes. With no prior jewelry making experience, she jumped in and began building Sanctuary Project in her kitchen. “I taught myself by watching YouTube,” she says.A few of the women who started working in the job training program have gone on to work on the leadership team as full-time employees running the business.
