This year brings several changes to True Care Women’s Resource Center, a Wyoming pregnancy medical clinic, including a new location just steps from a local abortion center.
In 2023, True Care opened a walk-in clinic in proximity to the abortion facility to provide a life-affirming alternative for women. The organization partnered with Sidewalk Advocates for Life and ministered to several women seeking abortions. However, earlier this year, the owner sold the building that True Care rented, and the organization needed to relocate.
“In August last year, we found out that our walk-in building had sold, and we had 30 days to get out,” said Jessica Baxter, True Care president and CEO. “We went on a frantic search for another walk-in location. We saw other medical clinics nearby, and one day, someone from our staff mentioned, ‘You know, that medical clinic right next door to our walk-in building is for sale.’”
The person who owned that building also owned the one True Care rented. After touring it a few times and seeing the building met and even exceeded their need, Baxter and the board decided to buy it.
“It took us a few days to get the bridge funding and everything together,” Baxter told Pregnancy Help News. “We viewed it again on a Friday. By Tuesday at 1:30 we submitted our bid, and he accepted within three hours.”
True Care closed at the end of September 2024 and the former tenant and her staff remained until the end of their lease in December.
True Care re-opened January 7, 2025, at the new location, bringing scheduled appointments, walk-ins, program offerings, and administrative offices under one roof. The pregnancy help organization is now just steps away from the Casper abortion facility.
Walk-ins occurred within the first week, and at the end of second week, an unscheduled woman arrived before the center’s doors opened, Baxter said. Although the patient left the appointment undecided, she allowed the advocate to share the Gospel with her and she accepted a Bible, Baxter added.
But the client traffic into the new location didn’t stop there.
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Seven women have walked in for services without scheduled appointments in the subsequent few weeks and also five women seeking abortions at the nearby abortion facility allowed Sidewalk Advocates to give them roses and materials on options.
"God is working along Second Street!” Baxter said. “Such wonderful praises since the move to the new location!”
Prayer enveloped the new location prior to opening. About 25 people arrived the day before the center re-opened, and these community members covered the building inside and outside with petitions to the Lord. Another dozen promised to pray for True Care at home that day, Baxter said.
“We've moved closer [to the abortion center] and we know we are also closer to the spiritual battle that's happening [there],” she said. “Our books were filled for the entire first week, so we knew we were going to hit the ground running, and we needed to be prayed up.”
The pregnancy help center saw several abortion-minded and determined women within the first two weeks of re-opening, Baxter added.
New programs
In addition to a new location, 2025 brings new opportunities to serve and meet patient needs.
True Care was the first pregnancy resource center in Wyoming to become a medical clinic, and this year the staff and board will break new ground once again in the state – providing free mental health counseling. Such a service is greatly needed, not only in the pregnancy help arena, but also in the state, Baxter said.
“Wyoming is at very top in suicide rates, but we are also at the top of the list when it comes to mental health challenges and struggles amongst our population,” she said. “We are at the bottom of the list when it comes to the availability of mental health care.”
She and her staff will work with Hope Center in Corsicana, Texas, which started a counseling program a few years ago. That center desires to see more pregnancy help organizations offer counseling, therefore, when Baxter reached out, the organization agreed to have True Care be “the guinea pig,” she said.
A space in the new building is set aside for when the program starts, which is planned for late summer or early fall, when students are back at school, Baxter said.
While exploring the option of mental health counseling at True Care, Baxter learned the wait list for mental health services in Casper and around the state is often four months.
“That’s too long for a woman in crisis and her family,” she said. “We know there are a couple of main struggles that people have [regarding counseling services]. One, it’s too expensive so they don’t seek mental health care, and two, there’s a lack of providers.”
Wyoming is a rural state, and therefore, distance is also a barrier. Offering counseling services to patients helps tackle those three challenges. Like all True Care services, the counseling program will be free of charge.
“It's just part of our holistic view of the woman, and Corsicana is going to be invaluable, walking alongside us,” Baxter said.
Along that same line, True Care is integrating a Woman at the Well approach. This involves an extension of pregnancy help organizations’ philosophy of ‘meeting her where she’s at.’ The idea sparked from a leadership meeting, Baxter said.
“Jesus came to the woman at the well where she was, and He told her first that He was the Messiah,” she said. “It just shows the value that Jesus places on women … not just any woman but this woman at the well who was not your typical kind of woman that would have been in the upper echelons of society. I said, ‘Wouldn't it be great if women could feel that way leaving here?’”
Continued conversations during the weekly leadership team meetings birthed the Woman at the Well concept, an endeavor they continue to hone.
“One of our goals as an organization is to increase the opportunity to share the Gospel, and for a long time, we've focused that presentation in the appointment,” Baxter explained. “But what we really figured out was that every interaction we have with the woman and her significant other, family member, whomever, is an opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus.”
“So, our Gospel presentation isn't just limited to the two-or-three-minutes within that appointment,” she said. “Our Gospel presentation is in every interaction. We call it our Woman at the Well Culture.”
Baxter added, “Jesus said He has gone to prepare a place for us, and we know that that's going to be a beautiful, wonderful place. So, we wanted to do the same thing here. When a woman comes to True Care or whoever walks in the door, we want them to know that this place has been prepared, that they are welcome here, that they are loved here, and that they are wanted here.”
Producing good fruit
The endeavor makes positive impacts.
“Our education director received a text message recently from a former patient,” Baxter shared.
The client said she was really lonely, had postpartum issues, was not working and so was at home alone, and asked if she could come and visit True Care. The client came in and sat down in the education director’s office and chatted for about an hour. “She said, ‘You guys became like my family. I don't have family here so when I thought of the people that I wanted to talk to, that I could ask some mom questions and some life questions, I just thought maybe you guys might be able to answer them,’” Baxter recalled.
Other examples are highlighted in the responses given by patients on recent exit surveys, Baxter said.
“We’ve had clients say, ‘I felt safe here,’ and ‘I felt you wanted me here,'” she said.
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“Knowing that she had come in with an unplanned pregnancy, chose life, participated in our programs, and then had such a strong connection that we were the place she thought of when she needed questions answered and when she needed love,” said Baxter.
“That's the woman at the well,” added Baxter. “She left here feeling so loved, this was the place she wanted to come back to. Those are the kinds of situations where we know what we're doing is impactful.”
“We are changing our community for the better,” Baxter said, “building a stronger community, and we are changing eternity, building a stronger Kingdom, one little family at a time, whatever that family looks like.”
