A new pregnancy center director has implemented new ideas in the processes used with the center’s two mobile units that travel to areas of New Jersey, and she additionally found value in the Pregnancy Help Institute (PHI) new directors training hosted by Heartbeat International in July.
Victoria Dean said the information gleaned at PHI included administration of a pregnancy help ministry, the roles of the board and the executive director, legal aspects of a pregnancy help ministry, and how to conduct fundraising activities.
“It was so informative, everything about the training,” Dean said. “I just kept taking notes and writing in the binder.”
Taking the helm as the executive director of Bridge Women’s Center just a few months before PHI, Dean said she found encouragement not only from the Heartbeat staff, but also from other executive directors.
“We’re all going through the same thing,” she said. “We’re all in the same battle.”
Bridge Women’s Center, with two medical mobile units and no brick-and-mortar location, is operated by Calvary Chapel, the church that Dean attends. The pastor attended a pregnancy help conference more than three years ago and learned about a Save the Storks unit. That encounter sparked a vision, Dean said.
“We were the first church that Save the Storks actually partnered with,” she said. “We got our first one (medical mobile unit) in 2020.”
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The second unit was acquired last year. Each is christened with a Biblical name: Hannah for the first and Joshua for the second.
“We go out six days a week through central New Jersey,” Dean said. “We have an ultrasound tech on with the RN, two intake counselors, and our drivers are our security, so we usually have a team of six that go out.”
The units are parked on a public street near “a Planned Parenthood that we know does abortions,” she added.
The two medical mobile units visit 10 different communities. Even amid a hostile state in which the state government issued a consumer alert to try to deter women from visiting pro-life pregnancy centers and mobile units, Dean said Bridge Women’s Center has been very successful.
"The Lord has really blessed the ministry,” she said. “Since 2020, 900 babies have been saved. It really just started with a vision of a pro-life group of people, those within the ministry that were pro-life, that were for the sanctity of life, and wanted to do something.”
After the first executive director left the position, Dean said she was encouraged to apply for the job. A widow with nearly three decades of business experience, she said she felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to heed her friend’s encouragement.
“I was really looking for a passion. I was looking for a purpose,” Dean said. “This was more of a calling; it was a purpose for me.”
Nearly a dozen staff members and more than 70 volunteers assist Dean in the life-saving work performed through Bridges. All volunteers go through the six-hour Sidewalk Advocates for Life training, she said.
“They come on a Saturday. We give them breakfast and lunch, and they all sit and go through what’s on the big screen, the six-hour course,” she said. “Then they get their certificate. We want them to really understand, you can have a passion and a heart to go out there, but you've only got seconds to try to get that woman to stop and pause and know there's options.”
Working with others from her church and elsewhere helps to bridge the gap between a woman choosing life or abortion for her child. Therefore, partnerships are a critical component for the ministry, Dean said. That can come in the form of volunteers, programs for both men and women, additional churches supporting the pro-life work, expanding the vision of mobile units to other churches in the nation, or working with maternity homes and other organizations to provide resources for the women seen on the mobile unit.
Each of those components is vital and taking that message on the road will take place soon. A celebration and education gala is planned for October 4 in conjunction with a pastor’s conference at the Creation Museum in Kentucky, she said.
“We're taking our mobile medical unit, Joshua, to Kentucky so they can see it, touch it, see what it looks like, and hopefully go back and talk to their congregations [about starting a similar ministry],” said Dean.
Building those partnerships benefits all parties involved, she added, Bridge Women’s Center, clients served, and organizations that come alongside the ministry or start one of their own.
“At the end of the day, we have the same goal,” Dean said, “to further the Kingdom of God by just getting out there and saving those babies and those moms and those dads.”
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Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
