A fledgling pregnancy help center began in Knoxville, Tenn., 20 years ago, and over the past two decades it has grown to a total of six life-affirming sites with continually expanding programming. As the Pregnancy Help Center of celebrates 20 years of pregnancy help it is also honoring one of its staff members who has been there since the beginning and helped to make the organization so effective in serving women.
Operated by Catholic Charities of East Tennessee (CCETN), the Pregnancy Help Center, with locations in Knoxville, Chattanooga, Johnson City, LaFollette, Newcomb, and Helenwood, serves thousands of women and families. And as the organization’s Program Leader for Pregnancy Services, Sandi Davidson oversees each operation. The Pregnancy Help Center’s services include free pregnancy testing, pregnancy options information, parenting classes, adoption information, community referrals, ad post-abortion counseling. Davidson leads these programs.
“She's amazing!” said Ernestine Meiners, program coordinator at the Pregnancy Help Center in Knoxville. “We couldn't do this without her.”
“Sandi is the expert in everything pregnancy help center-related,” said Paul Ritter, director of programs for CCETN and Davidson’s supervisor. “So, she oversees all of our program leaders who are in these individual areas.”
“But she's also made herself available,” Ritter said. “She goes above and beyond.”
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Davidson is often the calming voice on the other end of the pregnancy center’s hotline, on call 24/7, Ritter said.
“She gets calls from people who are in crisis with the pregnancy, who might be considering abortion,” he explained. “She gets up any hour of the night and speaks with them and lets them know what that would actually mean and what that would actually look like so that they can make an informed decision and not just a decision out of crisis.”
She also conducts outreach and fundraising events, he added.
However, her service doesn’t stop there.
“Sandi manages the Rachel's Vineyard programming with two retreats every year for folks who have had an abortion and need to heal from that,” Ritter said. “She goes off on a retreat for a weekend two times a year and runs that healing retreat along with some of the clergy from the local diocese.”
Meiners described Davidson as “passionate, supportive, and a servant leader.”
“What I love about Sandi is she shares her knowledge with us or with people who ask,” Meiners said. “We have a lot of people in the community come to Sandi as a point of reference.”
“She also sends out personal thank-you notes to the parishes, to the donors, telling them that they make a difference, that we can't do this without them,” said Meiners. “I know so many of our volunteers and our donors are with us because of her.”
“Working with Sandi was one of the most rewarding parts of my experience at Catholic Charities in Knoxville,” said Mercy Sister Mary Christine Cremin, former CEO of CCETN from 2009 through 2017.
“Her love and compassion combined with her ‘can-do’ spirit gave her an absolute dedication to seeing that the women and couples who came to the pregnancy centers got everything that we could give to help them be good mothers and parents,” Sister Mary Christine said. “She was the ‘heart’ that kept the center alive and well through some difficult days.”
Ritter agreed.
“One word I think of when I think of Sandi is perseverance,” he said. “She’s still advocating in person, getting us through those difficult times so that what we have now can be possible.
“Sandi really has a deep care for the clients that come in to receive services, and she has a perspective of meeting them where they're at because they are each coming with a very unique situation,” Ritter added. “She's the one who will hop in the vehicle and go make sure that the ladies in those areas, the families in those areas, are still receiving services even when we don't have a worker in that area. She just picks up and goes to make sure that the services are able to continue.”
Davidson’s compassion and care extends to the staff as well, Meiners said.
“We as program leaders at the different pregnancy centers, if there's an issue or something we're struggling with, we can call Sandi, and we know she has our back,” she said.
opening in 2002, at left is Kim McCready
who helped open the first center
“She will help us resolve something, whether we've got a scheduling issue or a family crisis somebody's got going on, she finds a way to get the center covered, said Meiners. “She’s a really good problem solver. She’s also an encourager and is so supportive of us.”
As the Pregnancy Help Center prepares to celebrate 20 years of service in Knoxville with Davidson as its leader on August 17, 2022, staff at both the Pregnancy Help Center and CCETN look forward to honoring her for her dedication.
“We are so blessed!” Meiners said. “Sandi is encouraging, no matter what.”
Vision for the future remains vital for everyone involved with CCETN. Even a fire last November at the Knoxville site has temporarily displaced that locations operations but its services have not missed a beat. And for further example, an adoption service was added less than a month ago, a Walking with Moms program is set to begin soon, and funds have been raised and momentum in place to purchase an ultrasound machine and a mobile ultrasound unit.
Davidson has been instrumental in the growth.
“These programs are things she's pushed for and advocated for over the years,” Ritter said.
“Sandi has amazing dedication and real dedication to life, dedication to the unborn,” he said. “I might have thought I knew what that means before I came (to CCETN), but working with Sandi, I know a lot more now about what that means than I did before.”
