LAUREL, Del.- A church like Storm Shelter Ministries is meant to be a place where people can gather peacefully.
But the accused actions of pastor Leonard Eley have people shocked and upset.
Eley has been charged with multiple offenses, including asking a teenage girl in his church for explicit photographs, and then stealing money from the church to pay for them.
Locals like Antonio Limehouse say that it's disturbing to see something like this happen in Laurel.Â
"We support our kids and for an adult in that kind of hierarchy, that's kind of disturbing," he said. "It makes you want to watch the kids more."
Patricia Dailey Lewis and Reggie Laster are child safety advocates with the Beau Biden Foundation. They say cases like this are too common.
"This is what we see over and over again," said Dailey Lewis. "It is fully preventable if families and students are educated."
"We have to make sure that we as individuals, as fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, people in our community, that we have the tools to deal with this potential safety issue," Laster continued. "Because at the end of the day, the ones that are affected the most are the children."
According to Dailey Lewis, some warming signs could be an adult asking for unsupervised interactions with a child, or the adult contacting the child directly.
Dailey Lewis says the risk of predators reaching a child increases with digital communication, and encourages all parents to have conversations with their children.