How to Leave a Legacy for Your Community

One More Child is excited to celebrate a growing partnership with a charity with an origin story exemplifying how we can leave a legacy by investing in people in our communities.

Read on to discover how this multi-generational, legacy charity was started by a high school student who wanted to honor her mentor and be inspired! You can make a difference in your community, too.

Totty’s Totes, an incredible ministry dedicated to offering hope and support to teenage girls and women facing challenging circumstances, provides beautiful, hand-sewn tote bags filled with hygiene items, encouraging gifts, and a Bible to survivors in One More Child’s Anti-Trafficking program, ensuring that the Word of God reaches these vulnerable women when they need it the most. 

The organization was founded in 2022 by Baylie Cruce and grew out of a special bond she shared with the late Totty Conway. Baylie met Ms. Totty at her church when she was six. And it was through Ms. Totty’s mentorship over the years that Baylie was saved at 13. 

Over time, Ms. Totty and Baylie continued to have a special relationship with one another as Ms. Totty encouraged and supported Baylie in the many ministries she took on as a young person who loved Jesus.  

Eventually, Ms. Totty began to struggle with her health, and though she intended to be encouraging to Ms. Totty, Baylie’s mom, who accompanied her, and Baylie would both leave feeling uplifted. “We were there to encourage her, yet she was the type of person that encouraged you.” 

When Ms. Totty passed away, she left Baylie $100 with the instruction to “do something big.” That moment was the beginning of Totty’s Totes, but it was not how it started.  

Baylie confesses she sensed God’s call to start a ministry and had the idea to create inspiring tote bags for young women coming out of traumatic situations, but she had no idea where to begin. She prayed and called a few places, searching for a place to begin. After a challenging surgery to correct her spine in the summer of 2022, she thought the hospital might be an opportunity. But the doors seemed to be closed again.  

One year of faithfulness after Ms. Totty’s passing, while she was meeting the founder of another meaningful ministry her organization supports, Baylie learned about One More Child and its work on behalf of survivors of sex trafficking who often leave their circumstances with little more than the clothes on their backs.   

“I really felt like God was calling us to fulfill this need for a few reasons. Trafficking is, unfortunately, becoming increasingly common. These women need a lot of compassion at this point in their lives and that is something Ms. Totty specialized in. I think working with One More Child and the trafficking victims was a perfect match…” 

An answer to prayer, Baylie suddenly had two organizations that could use her totes. And Totty’s Totes began.  

Totty’s Totes is supported by women from a local church who pray over the bags as they are handsewn, and Baylie and her mom pray again as they assemble each one. Each bag contains a Bible and testimony card about Ms. Totty, hygiene necessities, and encouraging specialty items like pocket hugs, stickers, pens, a journal, and a cross. The Totty’s Totes team is currently able to fill about 25 bags at a time and they distribute them as needed when partners are running low. 

Today, in addition to One More Child’s Anti-Trafficking program, Totty’s Totes provides its thoughtful totes to multiple organizations including crisis centers and counseling facilities that, in turn, pass the bags along to their clients in need.  

Baylie is proud of the partners who have stepped forward to help Totty’s Totes reach more women and girls. She is especially thankful for all the people God put in place to grow the ministry, and she is hopeful that the mission will continue to thrive. 

One particularly heartwarming story that touched Baylie deeply was that of a trafficking survivor from One More Child. The adolescent girl, rescued from dire circumstances was moved to tears upon receiving the tote bag. The tote made her feel special and loved – something she had not experienced. Ever.

Stories like these encourage Baylie to keep going. But for Baylie, the best part is knowing that Totty’s Totes include a Bible for each vulnerable teen girl and woman to read and that people are praying for them. Access to the Word of God and knowing the power of prayer, she believes, are at the heart of Totty’s Totes and Ms. Totty’s legacy.

One More Child is grateful for its partnership with Totty’s Totes and profoundly inspired by the difference it is making today – all because Ms. Totty took the time to nurture a relationship with a young person in her community who was looking for Jesus. Today, her investment reaches beyond Baylie to touch the lives of so many, including One More Child trafficking survivors.

That’s how to leave a legacy.

We pray for continued favor for Baylie’s ministry as it grows, and we pray that her story inspires others not only to mentor the young people in their lives, but also to not wait to act in faith to make a difference where they live.

To support our work in aiding sex trafficking survivors, you can make a financial contribution to One More Child today. Your generous support for vulnerable children creates a lasting impact for generations.