After intense weeks of preparation and promotion, a humanitarian movement called REVO PUC came to Pacific Union College. Hundreds of students, faculty, staff and community members crowded to the campus mall on May 18 for the REVO PUC event.

PUC’s REVO was the brainchild of student Rachel Thompson and inspired by a campus visit from activist David Batstone. He spoke to the campus about human trafficking, which is still a massive industry with an estimated 27 million people, including children, trafficked each year worldwide, including in the United States. Batstone established the “Not For Sale” campaign to end human slavery in our lifetime.

The awareness of this cause encouraged Thompson to take it up as her own and to ask her peers to join her. She hooked up with the REVO movement, which was started more than a year ago in Hilo, Hawaii, by a close friend of Thompson’s, and has since spread to Orlando, Philadelphia, Baton Rouge, New York and Las Vegas. Each REVO event has taken a unique approach to raising awareness and funds for different causes, with the slogan “We’re not waiting on the world to change.”

Thompson and a team of nearly a dozen students went to work getting the message of REVO to the campus. A MySpace page for REVO PUC, a promotional video on YouTube, and everything from chalk messages on sidewalks to announcements during all-school colloquy helped to raise awareness and get people connected to the movement.

The crowd that turned out on the evening of the event enjoyed a spoken word poetry slam, a fashion show, several student organization booths, snacks for sale, and a concert by a Hawaii-based indie band. But the main feature was the student-run benefit sale. Students, faculty and community members donated hundreds of items which were resold and auctioned off.

All proceeds from the evening went to a Not For Sale project — building a shelter and vocational center for trafficked and abused children in Lima, Peru. And awareness of that purpose played a large role in people’s participation. Student Nathan Miller, who helped man the silent auction table, noted, “People will say, ‘This is for the kids? Well then, yeah, I’ll bid!’ It’s not about how much you want to pay for something, but how much it can benefit the kids.” In the end, REVO PUC raised more than $9,000 for the project, an all-time record for REVO events.

Organizing REVO PUC was an intensive project, but students hope to bring it back next year to support another humanitarian cause. The motivation is the conviction that one’s faith and active participation in social justice causes are interconnected. “If we call ourselves followers of Christ,” Thompson says, “then this is something we must be a part of. He calls us to do this work.”