Crawfest raising funds for Scarlet Rope

When Julanne and Will Stone starting doing crawfish boils in their front yard for their friends about 20 years ago, Will always wanted to find a way to do a boil for a good cause.

Now that Julanne is in her eighth year working with Scarlet Rope Project, Will has gotten to be able to help put on an annual boil for that good cause. It’s called Crawfest, and it happens on Saturday at Hub City Brewing in Downtown Jackson.

“We have added shrimp to the event the past few years, but either way it’s a lot of good food,” said Julanne Stone, who is the director of Scarlet Rope, which is a local non-profit group whose objective is to help rescue victims of human trafficking and get them out of their situations.

“We raised $22,000 our first year, and we’re hoping to hit $100,000 this year with more and more people learning about it and joining in each year,” Stone said. “When we figured out we’d need a fundraising event or two each year, I wanted to do something laid back that people can relax and have fun hanging out.

“Crawfest is exactly what I hoped it would be.”

In its eight years of existence, Scarlet Rope has housed 54 survivors of human trafficking has connected hundreds more with different resources they needed.

“It could be money or necessities or a bus ticket to another state,” Stone said.

It recently opened its own home to house survivors in. Local leaders celebrated a ribbon cutting at that place earlier this month.

“We’re a grassroots, locally-started and funded group that has nine on staff – five full-time and four part-time – that a number of churches and civic groups partner with us,” Stone said. “The money raised this weekend will go toward our operational costs of keeping lights on and keeping all of our initiatives going and employees paid.”

It starts at Hub City Brewing at 3 p.m. until 8 p.m.

“There will be good music and good food, cornhole, volleyball … it’s just a fun time to hang out,” Stone said. “And it’s family-friendly too.”

Tickets for Crawfest are available online here.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news