Two Wisconsin pregnancy help organizations joined together earlier this year in order to better serve women vulnerable for abortion, with plans to fully unite under one brand this summer.
Vida Medical Clinic, based in Appleton, and Bella Pregnancy Resource Center in Oshkosh, will join under the Vida brand in July, the centers announced earlier this year. Currently, medical staff from Vida are serving at the Bella center, and other services, including a maternity home, are also being shared.
“By July 1, we’ll be one organization under the Vida brand,” said Anne Tretinyak, executive director at Vida. “The expanded locations are very beneficial to the people we serve.”
“Oftentimes, nonprofit organizations [think] we’re in competition,” said Beth Nemecek, executive director at Bella. “Everyone wants to count how many babies saved, how many women came to God. More importantly, we just want to be there and meet their needs, whatever they are at that point.”
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In addition to the Appleton and Oshkosh clinics, which are about 30 miles apart, another location a bit farther south in Fond du Lac is also an option for women seeking pregnancy support and other services. The two leaders envision expanding the Vida brand into more communities in the future.
“We’re looking at the impact in northeast Wisconsin, in a regional area as opposed to just a small geographical area that we’re serving,” Tretinyak said. “Beth and I have a much bigger vision of serving northeast Wisconsin.”
Vida has served women in 23 counties in Wisconsin, according to Tretinyak, from medical services to maternity home residents, including women from the Milwaukee and Madison areas, one to two hours away. They have also seen clients who live in Michigan.
Tweet This: Pregnancy Help nonprofits often think they’re in competition. We just want to be there for women and meet their needs.
From idea to implementation
The idea of collaboration took root after Tretinyak became Vida’s director five years ago.
“Beth called me up,” Tretinyak recalled. “I was not only new to the organization but really the movement as well, and she said, ‘Let me come over and introduce myself.’”
They pondered why the centers were not working together at that point.
“I said to Beth, ‘I don’t know. I just got here; I have no idea!’” Tretinyak said.
That meeting prompted further brainstorming, discussions, and “some dreaming” of how the two organizations would benefit if they worked more closely together, she said. Plans began to take shape a few years ago.
“I wouldn’t have gotten on board if I truly didn’t believe in this mission,” Nemecek said. “You have to have a unified mission.”
“You have to have a solid business infrastructure,” Tretinyak stated. “And you have to present yourself as a very professional, competent organization that’s delivering services with excellence.”
“And I think that’s what we’re able to do together,” she said. “The coming together of the two organizations is going to allow us to create something that’s truly special.”
Vida is currently undergoing accreditation as an ambulatory medical facility through which Bella will also be aligned. The process is pretty rigorous, Tretinyak said.
“You really do have to have a team of providers to successfully complete that accreditation process,” she said. “We employed more people on our medical team, and we had the resources available to us to be able to do the accreditation.”
“That eliminates that whole conversation of being a fake clinic,” Nemecek told Pregnancy Help News. “There’s nothing there that’s fake.”
The process began last summer and is expected to conclude in late spring or early summer this year.
“We’re able to elevate and expand medical services for the Oshkosh community,” Tretinyak said.
Same services, expanded locations
In addition to pregnancy testing, ultrasound offerings, STI testing and treatment, Vida offers well-women’s services and sports physicals. Vida employs nurses and a nurse practitioner. Nurses not only provide medical services, but they also staff the phones five days a week, ensuring that callers have access to a medical professional immediately. The same is now also part of the Oshkosh center. Electronic medical records were implemented at Bella in January as well.
“We’re able to offer programs we previously hadn’t been able to offer,” Nemecek said.
The Vida Medical Clinic/Vida Medical Clinic
Trinity House, a maternity home that Vida opened in 2023, is available for clients of both centers.
“We’ve literally seen moms choose life because we have housing available to them,” Tretinyak said. “It’s been a game-changer.”
Although shared services started in January, each organization will have its own fundraising banquet this year.
Bella began in 1993 as a maternity home called Labor of Love before becoming a pregnancy center. The first ultrasound under the name change to Bella Pregnancy Resource Center occurred the following year.
Bella’s event is scheduled for June 4, and Vida’s banquet is set for April 24.
Unified mission
As the time for the full merger of Vida and Bella approaches, both women feel excitement for the joining together and collaboration.
“We’ll do whatever it is we have to do to make an impact, and if that’s medical services or selling pizza, we want to have impact,” Tretinyak said. “For the two of us, we can have greater impact when we’re collaborating and sharing resources. We don’t see each other as competitors, we see each other as collaborators.”
Differentiations are a positive for the merger, the two women agreed, including differences between their leadership styles, their staff, clients, and donor base.
“It’s been a tremendous friendship and professional relationship that’s built over the last five years that we’ve been working together and not worrying about donors or number of clients or who has more church support,” Tretinyak told Pregnancy Help News.
“Things that are Anne’s strengths are not mine, and I’d like to think I have a few strengths that outweigh hers,” Nemecek said.
Tretinyak credited Nemecek and the Bella board with humility for letting go of brand identity and “placing trust in the Vida brand.”
“That’s a beautiful thing,” she said. “It’s mission above all else.”
Tweet This: “It’s mission above all else” - Leaders of Wisconsin-based Vida Medical Clinic and Bella Pregnancy Resource Center say of merger.
