When Amanda transferred to PLNU under the Beauty for Ashes Scholarship in 2022, she had a bold vision: build the first-ever online directory of survivor-owned businesses and survivor-led nonprofits. Even as a child, she exuded the cleverness of an entrepreneur and the whimsy of a creative. In those early days after surviving exploitation, she was eager to find fellow survivors who had forged their own paths to thriving businesses. But every Google search turned up flat.
Still, Amanda believed she wasn’t the only entrepreneur who had experienced human trafficking and gender-based violence. She just needed the data to test her theory.
As she settled into her first semester of International Development courses, she asked two critical questions: is this directory a need? Is it going to solve anything? But the unexpected rigor of PLNU, combined with the adjustment to life on campus, made her wonder if she’d ever find the answers. In conversations with classmates, Amanda was acutely aware of the many layers to her identity: first-generation college student, single mom, survivor of complex trauma, mid-twenty-something.
She felt out of place. She missed her friends back in L.A. She was unsure if she would continue.
But through routine check-ins for the Beauty for Ashes Scholarship with Program Director Katie Hodson, Amanda found support. Soon, those check-ins became spontaneous visits to Katie’s office when life and school were buzzing. Katie, in turn, collaborated with other on-campus departments to help lighten Amanda’s load.
By spring, Amanda had found safety and friendship at the Center for Justice and Reconciliation (CJR) at PLNU:
“The CJR was definitely my safe space on campus. I think knowing everyone so intimately and just seeing and understanding how our values really aligned—it felt like I found a place where I belonged. If it had not been for the CJR being there, I don’t know if I would have made it.”
Over the next three years at PLNU, Amanda found strength and inspiration in her friendships and connections. From uplifting meals with fellow scholars to empowering conversations with professors to everyday life with her son, it was the relationships that propelled her forward. Before she knew it, she was achieving honors, making an impact on campus, and steadily inching toward her vision for a survivor-led directory.
“The CJR was definitely my safe space on campus. I think knowing everyone so intimately and just seeing and understanding how our values really aligned—it felt like I found a place where I belonged. If it had not been for the CJR being there, I don’t know if I would have made it.”
An Evidence-based Solution
As Amanda prepared for her senior year, she applied for—and was readily offered—the Marketing Lead position at the CJR. Undeterred by this new role and her full-time studies, Amanda also undertook an honors research project to finally answer those gnawing questions: is there a need for a directory of survivor-owned businesses? Is this vision going to solve anything?
Guided by the mentorship of CJR Senior Research Associate Dr. Carli Richie-Zavaleta, Amanda designed a survey to identify both the barriers and supports that impact survivor success in entrepreneurship. She surveyed 61 survivor entrepreneurs and identified their top three barriers:
- Lack of funding & financial support
- Difficulty finding or growing customers and managing time
- Limited networking opportunities
Despite these challenges, nearly every survivor surveyed possessed the skills, resilience, and passion to build a thriving business. They just need a platform for people to discover their products and services.
These findings validate Amanda’s long-time vision. Free Brands—a first-of-its-kind directory—will not only connect consumers with mission-driven small businesses. It will also dismantle barriers and empower her peers to achieve success and financial stability.
An Unexpected Roadblock
While conducting her honors research, Amanda was on the lookout for seed funding to get Free Brands off the ground. She applied to the Anti-Trafficking Leadership, Innovation, and Sustainability (ATLIS) Project through the Office on Trafficking in Persons. In December 2024, she received an email congratulating her on a $25K start-up grant. Amanda was ecstatic.
In February 2025, just a few months before graduation, Amanda received another email. The funding for Free Brands had been pulled unexpectedly and indefinitely. Amanda was devastated. She considered putting the dream of Free Brands to rest.
But the more she reflected on it, the clearer it became: the loss of funding only reinforced the need for Free Brands to exist. Survivors have so few opportunities to reach financial stability after exploitation. A reputable, online directory––now backed by research––will give her fellow entrepreneurs a needed platform to achieve financial flourishing.
Fueled by this unexpected setback, Amanda found renewed determination to bring Free Brands to fruition. She just had to figure out how.
Ripples of Resilience
On a warm, sunny Saturday in May, Amanda became the ninth graduate of the Beauty for Ashes Scholarship. After walking across the stage to receive her diploma in International Development, with a minor in Marketing, she reunited with her teenage son in the audience. His red-rimmed eyes disclosed that he’d been crying, and she could feel his deep pride. They had sacrificed so much together to arrive at this moment, and their determination had paid off.
Amanda watched a new spark ignite in her son.
In the months since then, his hesitation about school has morphed into a dream of becoming an engineer. He’s joined a soccer team and is working hard to become a competitive candidate for an athletic scholarship to UCLA. Amanda reflects:
“Growing up in the projects and only knowing poverty, being at such a prestigious university—even though I felt like I didn’t belong at first—challenged my own internal biases. I was treated just like a regular student and told that I belong here, not just by the CJR but my professors as well. The growth within myself was: ‘I do deserve things that are different from what I know. I do deserve opportunities.’ It’s grown my audacity.”
“Growing up in the projects and only knowing poverty, being at such a prestigious university—even though I felt like I didn’t belong at first—challenged my own internal biases. I was treated just like a regular student and told that I belong here, not just by the CJR but my professors as well. The growth within myself was: ‘I do deserve things that are different from what I know. I do deserve opportunities.’ It’s grown my audacity.”
Amanda sees the Beauty for Ashes Scholarship as both a tool for empowering survivors and a long-term investment in the community:
“Someone in a position meant to empower survivors once said ‘Survivors can’t be entrepreneurs because they’re too traumatized.’ But we are capable of being more than our crisis. It takes a long time to reach stability, it’s expensive to heal, and survivors deserve opportunities to get there. The goal with Free Brands is to rewrite the narrative of what we are capable of when we are given those opportunities.
Like me, there are other CEO’s, business owners, leaders, and creative problem solvers out there; it’s just hard to find us. This scholarship represents the ripple effect of opportunity. Had I not been given the opportunity to receive this education and develop my nonprofit and do my research, then that vision I had would have just faded away. But I was given a place where I really incubated the idea, and now it’s actually, crazily happening.”
A Global Perspective
Shortly after graduation day, Amanda flew to Eswatini, Africa for her final graduation requirement: an international internship with Women Unlimited, a survivor-led organization focused on gender equality. During her internship, Amanda was tasked with creating marketing content to raise awareness and money for the development of a new women’s shelter. In situations of domestic violence, women are often stuck making the difficult decision to stay in an unsafe situation to protect their kids or leave their kids to flee to safety. The new shelter in Eswatini will allow mothers and their children to stay together, making it possible for more women to escape violent homes and find stability.
This project feels deeply personal to Amanda. While pursuing her education at PLNU, she relied on transitional housing to stay with her son and heal their relationship. If San Diego was limited to women-only shelters, she would have spent those three years away from her teenage son.
Throughout her twelve days in Eswatini, Amanda worked collaboratively with the Women Unlimited team to create engaging TikTok videos, and a few of the videos went viral. The campaign has since generated interest from all around the world, but the most impactful moment for Amanda was meeting with local students at an all girls high school about mental health, suicide prevention, and gender-based violence:
“Our host shared a little bit of her story, so then I was inspired to share a little bit of my story too. My goal was to share that this is a worldwide issue. Just because I am in a privileged country doesn’t mean that I’ve escaped from trauma and violence. I shared with them how where I live, I am considered to be at the poverty level, but that hasn’t stopped me from using my experience to fuel change.”
After sharing a part of her story, Amanda told the girls:
“There are future doctors in this room. There are future lawyers in this room, entrepreneurs. Stay the journey, believe in yourselves, strengthen your voice, and speak out when injustice is happening.”
Then she counted to three, and they all shouted together: “We are the future!”
Just the Beginning
Amanda is now settling into a new home in San Diego and starting her Master’s of Social Innovation at USD. She is most excited about the opportunity to keep shaping Free Brands while in grad school, rediscovering tactile hobbies like macrame and pottery, and enjoying leisurely movies with her teenage son. Later this month, she will officially launch Free Brands as the first survivor-led directory of survivor-owned businesses and nonprofits—a culmination of the time, dedication, and work she invested during her time at PLNU:
“I have a lot of visionary ideas, but if there’s one thing I learned at Point Loma, it’s ‘let the data speak for itself.’
I’ve really learned to grow in my understanding of ‘survivor-centered.’ Just because I am a survivor and I have my own ideas… I can’t speak for us all. So what I am carrying forward is: how do I continue to voice [all survivors] in the development of Free Brands? Because that is how we’ve gotten here, and that’s how we will continue to grow.”
