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Angel in red: Reno woman helps sex workers
By Geralda Miller

Women who work in the sex industry are not invisible to Sharnel Silvey.

As founder of A Scarlet Covering, a nonprofit organization that provides counseling and resources to women in the sex industry, she continues to work with women who she feels are neglected.

“I embrace them as a human being and want them to know that they’re loved and that we’re here for them,” she said.

Silvey has been busy since the stories that ran two months ago in the Reno Gazette-Journal about her and her organization.

She served Thanksgiving dinner to 40 women who work at Diamond Dolls and Fantasy Girls strip clubs; served dinner, decorated a Christmas tree and delivered gifts to women at the Big 4 Ranch brothel in Ely with members of the Strip Church in Las Vegas. She also has been working two days a month with Judge James Van Winkel in Reno Municipal Court with women arrested for solicitation, a misdemeanor in Nevada.

“We want them to know that we’re here,” Silvey said. “This is an avenue for us to let them know that we support them, regardless of what they’re doing. Society has rejected them and considered them an outcast.”

Sandy McClelland, house mom at Fantasy Girls, said the women who work at the strip club were surprised that Silvey and her organization wanted to serve them dinner.

“I think it’s incredible, really, that there are people that want to go out and do good things for no monetary gain and they just want to do it out of the goodness of their heart,” McClelland said. “I think they like the idea of somebody giving back to them and actually caring.”