When Gina Tomes began a new pregnancy help program in Omaha, Neb., she envisioned expanding beyond the community base there to help families across the Cornhusker State. The project expanded further earlier this year and has a planned launch for Florida next year.
Guiding Grace Family Support Network is a pregnancy help organization that assists people struggling with life whether due to poverty, addiction, lack of housing, or unplanned pregnancy through support and guidance. Whether their need is for housing, transportation, employment, food and materials assistance, or maintaining sobriety, Guiding Grace helps them connect with community resources. Tomes’ organization, which began more than a year ago, also offers classes and workshops to help families meet their relational needs.
“[Guiding Grace] was born from need,” Tomes said.
Tomes is the co-founder of Omaha-based Bethlehem House and had been its program director since 2005. Bethlehem House has been noted for its groundbreaking work in varied areas, specifically serving women wrestling with addiction, and was among five homes chosen to be part of a first-of-its-kind study on maternity housing. Tomes was also able to raise Bethlehem House’s profile along with awareness of maternity housing when she was invited to speak at the 2023 March for Life Rally. After being a leader in expanded services for maternity housing, Tomes was called to develop services that extended beyond initial pregnancy help or maternity housing.
“During the past 17 months, we’ve received calls from throughout Nebraska,” Tomes said of Guiding Grace and the increase in need for services. “We’re able to serve them in a certain capacity, but going into 2026, we will be able to hire remote case managers in those locations.”
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She and her Guiding Grace team currently work with families in areas outside of Omaha via Zoom and telephone.
Guiding Grace currently serves 450 families in the Omaha community, but Tomes recognizes that needs aren’t limited to one location. Thus, the expansion of Guiding Grace outside of the state Nebraska.
“We’re continuing to grow and take next steps,” Tomes told Pregnancy Help News.
She teamed up with Meghan DeLuca, who has operated a maternity home in Florida. The two met when Tomes still involved in the maternity housing arena. The two collaborated to bring Guiding Grace to Cape Coral, Fla., a town located along the Gulf Coast between Sarasota and Naples.
“We’re preparing to open our doors to meet the needs [of clients],” DeLuca said.
“We want to equip and empower people,” she said. “This blueprint [for Guiding Grace] gives us the freedom to bring them in and show them these are the things you can do, and walk that out with them without time limits, working through each and every one of their barriers one-by-one instead of quickly assimilating them and then letting them go out on their own where they are that – on their own.”
“We are relationship-oriented, and we care about families,” Tomes said. “Whether you’re running a maternity home or a pregnancy center, the need is so great to continue to walk with the clients we’re serving. Barriers they are coming with are not easily resolved or dismantled in the six or nine months they’re with us. The need in Florida is equally, if not greater, than Nebraska because of the population.”
A foundation for changing generations
Many community organizations partner with Guiding Grace, including medical professionals, colleges, nonprofits, and financial leaders. Some offer classes while others give presentations about the services they provide. Collaboration with community businesses and nonprofits is crucial for the success of Guiding Grace, which seeks to see their client families succeed in life.
“These clients have very limited or no access to services for themselves and their children,” DeLuca said. “As a network, we have the ability to resource that for them, and that is so critical to their healing.
“You can give them all the tools,” she said, “but without the heart work and the healing and the therapeutic work. Having all things available to them is a tremendous component of the network as well. Community collaborations are critical.”
“Anyone who offers a valid, helpful service that is in line with our mission, we will be collaborating with,” Tomes added.
“Guiding Grace offers an opportunity to change generations,” DeLuca said. “It is the dads and the moms, but it’s also the children and their children after that. We can create true change by affecting this generation and those going forward.”
Visualizing growth
The two women envision “scaling and replicating” Guiding Grace throughout the United States in the coming year by inviting pregnancy help organizations to implement the program into their service offerings, Tomes said.
“We would love for them to consider if it’s a little bit of Guiding Grace or all of Guiding Grace,” she told Pregnancy Help News.
The key is case management, but participating organizations won’t be on their own, Tomes said.
“We are here for them,” she said. “We feel strongly about being more united and using the same language and using each other to grow the pro-life safety net and fill in these gaps as the need grows greater and greater.”
Training for new organizations would take place in Cape Coral. DeLuca manages a property that can house those who take the training, sparing hotel expenses and offering a caring community.
“The directors and their teams, whoever comes, will receive soul-care,” DeLuca said. “We will pour into them while they’re here, while they are immersing themselves in what we do and how we do it.”
“They’re going to be taking Guiding Grace back to their center and communities, and so we want to invite them [to participate],” Tomes said. “Guiding Grace is [positively] affecting the culture.”
Tweet This: “We’re continuing to grow and take next steps” - Gina Tomes, on the growth of Guiding Grace Family Support Network.
Giving Days
Another vital component of Guiding Grace is a monthly community outreach known as Giving Days. These are held to thank and give back to the community, Tomes said, as well as to offer a reminder on the Guiding Grace organization.
“We want them to know we are here, and we are here to help,” she said.
Whether the family is a single mom with an elementary-aged child and a newborn or a single dad raising his children, Guiding Grace provides helpful resources and people who care, she said.
“We are their GPS navigators in life,” Tomes said. “Guiding Grace is that network that they can plug into. Our families are disconnected [and] we’re trying to educate them as they come in [about community resources].”
“To us, that’s life-affirming,” she said. “We feel God is revealing the need.”
DeLuca said the Cape Coral program will launch in February with a Giving Day.
“Giving Days are such a critical component because they give us a way to meet a need,” she stated. “We want Giving Days to be a well-spring of hope and connectivity within in our city. Our community is desperately in need of it.”
“If we have any prayers for 2026,” Tomes said, “it is to bring joy, to bring joy to our communities and families.”
