Where to begin?
That’s one thing Deidre Pujols didn’t know when she first encountered human trafficking: how to help the tens of millions of people, often children, violated in terrifyingly intimate ways, daily and worldwide.
The wife of Angels’ slugger and future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols—more than 650 homers, 2,000 RBIs, and 3,100 hits; a .300 batting average in 19 seasons, 10 of them as an All-Star—began to get ideas the more she saw the need.
Groups quoting U.S. State Department or global nonprofits’ figures show about 80% of human trafficking involves forced labor, often involving sex.
Three-quarters of all victims are female; one-fourth are children.
In the U.S., it’s common for preteens to be trafficked; internationally, they’re younger and 1 million people annually are forced across international borders.
“If I start to think too much about the numbers, I feel more defeated,” Deidre Pujols told the Business Journal.
“If 45 million people are enslaved today, I can’t wrap my head around that.”
Game Time
It was also an issue that had already captured global attention. All the best people—first responders, for instance—were already involved. All the best words—blight, scourge, horror—already taken.
“Human trafficking wasn’t in my space,” said Pujols, “It’s not what I was working on.”
She’s been involved in charitable work for two decades via the Pujols Family Foundation in St. Louis, which helps people with Down syndrome—the Pujols parent one—as well as in the Dominican Republic, where Albert’s from.
The Pujols’ daughter with Down syndrome, Isabella—“Bella”—is 21. Deidre bore her before marriage, before meeting Albert; they married on Jan. 1, 2000, and he made it to MLB the following year.
The Pujols family also includes children A.J., 18; Sophia, 13; Ezra, 9; and Esther, 6.
In 2016, she traveled to an event in Mexico City, which became the then-latest indication that she would begin to do more to fight this battle.
“I felt like things were getting in front of me,” she said. “I had to sit down and ask, ‘What am I going to do about it?’”
Good Look
Something in the word “millions” simultaneously conjures up an idea of a massive menace, a plague people must care about—and that can’t be solved.
People nod when told it’s bad, but then many start to nod off.
The solution for Pujols, which became her focus, was education.
“I got hooked,” she said, “started going around learning, taking notes.”
She began to travel—in addition to Mexico, she’s been to Cambodia, Brazil, and Eastern Europe—as well as meeting with the State Department and in gatherings at the White House.
“I realized the work that could be done and how to plug in.”
Rock On
The work Pujols launched came to involve her OC backyard, anchored at Angel Stadium, where Albert’s team works 81 times a year, stadiums in other parts of the country where they can be found another 81 days, and a different kind of plugging-in: concerts with stars Nick Jonas and Lauryn Hill.
Strike Out Slavery began in 2017 and 2018 in Anaheim with Jonas. The event, also known as SOS, will hit three dingers this year with Hill: events this year have added Deidre’s hometown of Kansas City and at Citi Field in New York, home of the Mets.
Hill plays at Angel Stadium on Sept. 14, after the game.
A full event includes opening two hours before a game, booths—informative and entertaining, fulfilling the adage of “teach and delight”—the baseball contest itself, and a concert afterward.
“It’s an opportunity to use stadiums to educate the fan base and new communities,” Pujols said.
She spoke with an attendee who’d never been to a ballgame, but came for the concert.
It’s tens of thousands “of people in one place, an enormous platform.”
Play Ball
Getting Major League Baseball aboard took time.
The Pujols duo attended a December 2016 meeting at league headquarters in New York to discuss the issue, but MLB did not initially back the new effort.
“They just weren’t there yet,” she said.
Instead, the Angels took a pitch directly from Pujols and the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force; she spoke of the severity of the issue, its relationship to community safety, and how a baseball game could help.
The first event took place in September 2017.
The league and players union have since stepped up, backing the effort with league and team brands, $100,000 for SOS and another $400,000 committed to anti-trafficking groups, through 2021.
Each team also has a “player ambassador” who represents it on the issue; Albert is the Angels representative.
SOS itself isn’t a 501(c)(3); it’s an initiative. Tax-deductible donations can flow to it via a third-party sponsor, Edward Charles Foundation in Beverly Hills, if donors ask, but that’s not the focus.
“I did not want this campaign to be about money.”
The Pujols have given privately and teams underwrite some stadium expenses.
This year’s SOS will cost about $1.5 million.
Box Score
Next year, six events are planned. Not all will have a concert, the costliest part of an event—not all team markets can support a rock fest—and it’s “not even the point” compared with getting local groups involved and people informed, she said.
“The significance is the mass of people,” said Pujols. “People are hearing, learning, beyond what I could’ve imagined.”
The efforts have produced an estimated 2 billion impressions—from attendance at the games to social media and the meetings and honors given the work so far.
“So many organizations did not know each other and all were doing something individually,” she said.
“I knew if we all got together on this that could be some crazy showdown” with the evil of trafficking.
Pujols has been to the U.N. and the Vatican, and plans to be at the White House again on Sept. 9 for a conference.
An indication of local benefits is an annual report from the OC task force. It includes numbers on how it hears of possible local trafficking. In past years, 100% came from law enforcement. A recent tally showed two-thirds did, meaning more individuals are paying attention and acting on what they see.
“You don’t see a lot of work on prevention because it’s hard to get quantitative data,” she said, but that’s changing.
“Whoever was not thinking about this before is thinking about it now.”
Stadiums, Food
The before part—the information, education and prevention—was always the plan.
Something after began about the same time as SOS: Open Gate International in Costa Mesa, formed to train people coming out of trafficking in culinary arts and hospitality—personal passions of Pujols.
It has since morphed into a general workforce reintegration effort for people from many backgrounds: foster care youth aging out of the system, ex-convicts, victims of domestic violence, and the homeless.
“We opened up to any vulnerable population [offering] work with dignity” and a way to leave old ways of life.
The program began in January 2017; it includes cooking and life skills instruction—in multiple languages—and “has graduated 131 people so far” at hotels and restaurants including Nobu and at Disneyland Resort, she said.
Long Run
“People are usually walking into a job,” Pujols said. “We’ve made some incredible relationships.”
She’s just getting started.
On human trafficking, she said, “I could’ve said, ‘this is too big, let me just write you a check, I’ll say some prayers.’”
Finding a way to help, using her passion—and position—to drive connection between people and among groups, is the ongoing work of her philanthropy.
“Time is more valuable than money and it goes farther.”
