Elizabeth Melendez Fisher Good Works Tirelessly to Prevent Sex Trafficking

Elizabeth Melendez Fisher Good
Image: Barbara Banks
For someone who moved to Sarasota from Chicago “to do nothing,” Elizabeth Melendez Fisher Good, 51, has done plenty. Since 2011, as co-founder and CEO of Selah Freedom, one of the nation’s leading anti-sex trafficking organizations, she’s worked tirelessly to prevent sexual exploitation and slavery, support victims and educate students and the public in general. Helping in that effort has been her master’s in clinical psychology, but also useful, though painful, is the abuse she herself suffered as a teen, a story her latest book, Groomed, tells. She doesn’t let the darkness get her down, though. Inspired by survivors’ stories, she’s launched The Selah Way Foundation to create a global network of service providers to help eradicate human trafficking. “Our graduations [from Selah’s programs] for girls who were told from the time they were 11 or 12 they’re garbage, are the most beautiful things in the world,” she says. “It’s rewarding and redemptive work.”