Holly Corbett, is part of a trio of female travelers, book co-authors, and TravelChannel.com personalities known as The Lost Girls, spearheaded an Airline Ambassador team in a 1 Mile Fun Run in her hometown of Hoboken NJ planned for Sat. September 27, 2014. What set this team apart is that they wore recycled bridesmaid, prom, or cocktail dresses (yes, even the guys!) and collecting pledges to raise money to provide an airport training for Newark, New Jersey in Human Trafficking Awareness. The premier Runaway Bridesmaids race took place in 2012 as part of New York City’s famous Fifth Avenue Mile, raising nearly $11,000 to help fight sex trafficking. Check this VIDEO of Holly Amanda & Jess!
TravelChannel.com Blog
Hudson News Feature
RunawayBridesmaids-InfoFlyer
Special thanks to Sherry Peters, Jan Reiss and Marcie Guice-Smith as well as Brett Hensley and Mike Ciraldo!
The Cause: Raising awareness and funds to help fight sex trafficking. 
Check out this quote from Abena Appiah, Ms Universe Ghana 2014:
“Human trafficking disproportionately affects impoverished girls and young women and needs to stop. Due to lack of awareness, education and resources these women are easily lured by dealers with the promise of a better life. These girls and young women are future leaders of their respective communities, yet they are captured for the purposes of forced labour, forced begging and sexual exploitation. Human trafficking is the fastest growing international crime affecting multiple industries worldwide. Everyone needs to be involved to bring awareness to this gross violation of human rights. That is why I support and promote this cause.”
AAI member Maarcie Gucci volunteers at Dawns Place, a Safe Houes in NE Philiadelphiais and now we are planning a Holiday Party to help the survivors there! Here is Holly’s follow up letter to the team!
Hi Team Runaway Bridesmaids,
You are all such rock stars. Thank you for coming out and making the second annual Runaway Bridesmaids race (and first-ever in Hoboken!) so much fun–and such a success. And you all looked beautiful doing it (check out these groups shots attached here).
If you have great pictures from the race, can you email them directly to me so I can share with the group? I’m putting together a slideshow that I will share with everyone. And if anyone has suggestions on the best way to do this, please let me know!!
How you made a difference: We have raised more than $7400 so far this year on Crowdrise.com/RunawayBridesmaids (or more than $18,000 in the two years that we’ve done the event!) to support the New Light shelter for the kids of sex workers in one of India’s biggest red light districts to help break the cycle of human trafficking. *pics of New Light kids also attached here
And for everyone who slipped into a dress and laced up their running shoes to help raise awareness about trafficking, proceeds from your race registration fee are sponsoring an anti-trafficking training program for flight attendants to learn how to spot and report child victims of trafficking, since airports are major trafficking hubs (tentative date & place 10/22/14 at Newark airport).
Our team: Our Runaway Bridesmaids team was so much fun because we truly had an amazing mix of people. Ours was a group of travel lovers, flight attendants, hard-core fitness enthusiasts, mommies, babies, runners in training, and all-around passionate individuals. Each one of you should be proud that you did good this weekend and gave back, but here are a few shot outs:
Grand Prize Winner: A big congrats to Ms. Emily Lambert for raising $1000 on Crowdrise. She wins an Airline Ambassadors Mission Trip to visit one of their projects in Guatemala, Colombia or Haiti…her choice, flight included. A HUGE thank you to Airline Ambassadors for generously sponsoring the prize. If you have a case of wanderlust and are interested in joining Emily, check out the trip details: GUATEMALA https://oldsite.airlineamb.org/2014/04/25/guatemala-may-24-may-29/#.U_efEPldV8FCOLOMBIA https://oldsite.airlineamb.org/2014/08/01/yoga-trip-to-colombia/#.U_eflvldV8E HAITI https://oldsite.airlineamb.org/2014/07/06/texting-for-good/#.U_edPvldV8E
*Also a big shout out to Mr. Matt Gennone, another fundraising superstar who collected $1500 for the cause (Like myself, Jen, Amanda, Kevin and Jason, he was not eligible for the grand prize because he is related to us!).
First Place Finisher: Congrats to Mr. Steve Giangiulio, the guy putting the ladies to shame in the super short red plaid dress who won first place in the Runaway Bridesmaids heat with a 6:24 mile.
Best Dressed Guy: Mr. Barry Vargas takes home the award for best dressed with his floor-length, one-shoulder teal gown and matching teal sunglasses. He didn’t let the dress get in the way of pumping some iron when he joined the Hoboken Pump and Run portion.
Really, guys made the biggest fashion statements this weekend: The men in purple (Darren, Mike, Brett, Mark), the men in black (John, Dennis, et al), Mr. Vishal Lokre in the peach Grecian gown, the dudes in the flowered/ printed dresses (Jason I know you didn’t mean to leave your animal-print sheath behind at the bar!) and Kevin Brennan with his short gray dress showing off his runner’s legs all looked absolutely fabulous.
Furthest Traveler: We had runners hailing from DC, Boston, and Syracuse (you rock Kathleen, Darren, and Bethany) come especially for the Runaway Bridesmaids event. The RB runner who traveled the furthest distance to be here for the event is Miss Universe Ghana (aka Abena Appiah) who traveled here from (you guessed it:) Ghana. She supports the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, and really made the event feel all the more special. Thank you Abena!!
Best Interns Ever: We could not have pulled off the event without our awesome interns from Centenary College: Angela (who donned her mom’s teal 70s bridesmaids dress and the crafty woman behind those cool crowns and sashes given to the RB prize winners) and Susan (who was my go-to girl for yelling out the 50-50 raffle winner over the music at the Little Town NJ after party). If anyone is looking to hire some passionate public relations mavens, you should definitely reach out to them!
Number One Photographer: Lisa Bellamy of This Is My View Photography kindly helped us document the big day with the challenging job of reigning us in to take group and action shots, some of which are attached here and others that I will share later. You can check out her work on her Etsy page: etsy.com/shop/myviewphoto
Top Race Directors: Finally, I can’t thank Bennett and Dana Smith enough, the organizers of the Hoboken Pump and Run and owners of Crossfit Hoboken, who made this year’s Runaway Bridesmaids race possible by letting us have our own 1-mile heat in the event.
I could keep going on about the old friends who showed up to support us (Dina, Stephanie M, Brady, Mark, Meg, Court, Sheree, Bindu & Vishal, Mike & Salma, Amanda P you are the best) and the new friends who crossed our path because of Runaway Bridesmaids (so happy to have met you Hillary, Jess, Sherry, Mike, Brett, Polina), but let’s just say the day was awesome and I can’t wait to do it again next year.
We are at 75 percent of our $10K goal, so it would be amazing if you could help us continue to fundraise throughout October: check out our page at Crowdrise.com/RunawayBridesmaids
Cheers again to all of you for an amazing race!!
Holly
