A rural Georgia pregnancy resource center has propelled from a soft opening in late autumn toward organizing as a pregnancy help medical resource center, thanks to a Life Launch Grant from Heartbeat International and an outpouring of community support.
Choices Pregnancy Care Center opened in Clayton, Georgia, in October. Some women have called, and a few clients have trickled through the doors. Executive Director Carla Wright and the board decided to keep marketing to a minimum until a later grand opening to announce the facility as a medical resource center in addition to a pregnancy resource center.
“Everything is happening so quickly,” Wright said. “The Lord has allowed us to have an opening (later) to announce both a resource center and medical resource center at the same time. We are holding off on the grand opening in order to say, ‘Here’s our medical side as well.’”
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Serving the underserved
Clayton, with about 2,000 residents, is in Rabun County, which has a population of approximately 17,000. This area of Georgia, near the Smoky Mountains and about three hours from Atlanta, borders North and South Carolina.
“We are a rural, underserved area,” Wright said.
‘Underserved’ is a qualification to receive a Life Launch Grant, according to Sara Littlefield, Life Launch Grant Program Specialist for Heartbeat. She supplies training and guidance for pregnancy centers chosen for the program.
"It is truly amazing to watch God work in each Life Launch center, meeting the unique needs of each community served,” she said.
Choices is moving quickly toward becoming a medical resource center thanks to a doctor literally walking through the center’s doors and volunteering to serve as the organization’s medical director. Such a position is required before a pregnancy help organization can be accredited as a medical resource center. The doctor showed up at Choices’ door on the Saturday Littlefield provided training for the organization’s board of directors.
“I had been trying to get a meeting with this doctor because I knew he was pro-life,” Wright said. “In fact, I was on the waiting list to meet with him and tell him about us. And he just walked in during our training.”
After learning more from Wright and her team about their plans and hopes, the physician asked a critical question: Do you need a medical director?”
“We said, ‘Yes, sir, we do,’” Wright recalled.
He volunteered. He also offered to donate a special type of ultrasound machine.
“He’s very willing to help us,” Wright said.
So are others in the community.
The community steps up
The Knights of Columbus offered financial assistance to raise funds for an ultrasound machine. Other people have come alongside the organization as volunteers, including three nurses and two people trained as sonographers. Equipment and money have been donated as well. Another requirement of the Life Launch Grant is to raise $30,000 to receive matching money from Heartbeat.
“We’ve already met that,” Wright said. “When we got the word out to our Board members about the money that we needed to match that grant, it was like the Lord just opened the doors, put the money in our hands, and said, ‘This needs to happen; this center needs to open.’ And the community just gave.”
Additionally, space opened next door, a necessity to increase the size of the center to accommodate needs for the medical component of services.
“God is really, really opening doors! It is unbelievable,” Wright said.
“It’s a faith-walk,” she added. “Doing this work has expanded my faith. It’s like God is saying, ‘I don’t want your ability, I want your availability, and I’ll do the rest.’”
Seeing and responding to a need
Wright and her husband, who is a pastor, founded a pregnancy center in South Carolina before moving to Clayton more than 10 years ago. She said she had become “burdened” for this region when recognizing the lack of women’s health care, including pregnancy resources, in the area.
“We just had a gynecologist move in three months ago and no OBGYNs,” Wright said. “We have nothing here for women. We realized there was no pregnancy center available (in the area) to help a woman in need of pregnancy aid. Some doctors are trying to start things up though.”
Because of that perceived need, Wright began pursuing the establishment of a pregnancy resource center, and because of her previous experience, she knew she needed help.
“We knew we needed a covering, so we chose Heartbeat as our first affiliation,” said Wright. “They have so many resources! And we found out about the Life Launch grant.”
“While taking some time to serve the leadership team at Choices Pregnancy Center, it was clear that this group of devoted servant leaders are dedicated to saving lives and seeing their community transformed for life!” Littlefield said. “We can't wait to see the ways God is able to work in and through this faithful team!"
“Sara Littlefield has been our angel!” Wright said. “She has held our hand every step of the way.”
Tweet This: “The Life Launch Grant has really catapulted us to be where we needed to be” - Choices Pregnancy Care Center in in Clayton, Georgia
In preparation for becoming a medical resource center, Wright is training some of the volunteers to become client advocates using the Love Approach program from Heartbeat, one of the resources provided through the Life Launch Grant. Parenting classes will be offered using Bright Course; Wright said she and her team are learning how to use that as well. The organization also has a website, another aspect of the grant, and a Facebook page.
“We are just now to the point of feeling we can really crank out the marketing to the clients,” Wright said. “This is a brand new, start-up center – there’s nothing like it in our area.”
“The Life Launch Grant has really catapulted us to be where we needed to be,” she added. “We may have had all the resources, but we wouldn’t have known how to handle them … I think we might have had a lot of opportunities with no idea what to do with them. I feel blessed, I feel informed and very anticipatory about what God is doing.”
