Compassion Care Center reaches many abortion-minded clients, between both its brick and mortar site located in Yadkinville, North Carolina, and also its mobile unit purchased through Save the Storks. Because of the mobile unit collaboration and other partnerships, the pro-life outreach now includes the urban area of Greensboro near the city’s abortion facility.
While working out locations to use the mobile unit in the beginning, the center took advantage of the unit's mobility to assist other centers.
“When we first got the mobile unit, we ran into closed doors,” said Jennifer Hemric, executive director of Compassion Care, recently re-branded from New Hope Pregnancy Care. “So, we helped other centers that weren’t medical.”
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Opening doors
Yadkinville, with a population of approximately 3,000, lies about 25 miles west of Winston-Salem and 50 miles west of Greensboro. These are areas that Hemric desired to reach.
Doors eventually opened in Greensboro thanks to an organization called Love Life.
The group prays regularly near abortion facilities in Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro, known as the Triad. They convene on Saturdays not only to pray against abortion, but also to counsel women and men entering abortion facilities in those communities.
One day, such praying and counseling touched the heart and mind of a restaurant owner’s son and his girlfriend as they headed to the Greensboro abortion facility. That encounter saved the life of their child and brought Compassion Care’s mobile unit to the parking lot of the restaurant two days a week.
“We take turns going there with another pregnancy center,” Hemric said. “God is so cool, opening this door for us.”
Compassion Care also deploys its mobile unit to Winston-Salem and continues to serve three pregnancy centers that do not otherwise provide medical services.
Hemric and her team began providing medical services in 2013 and purchased the mobile unit the following year.
“We reach just as many women with our mobile unit as with our brick and mortar building,” she said. “At least one baby a week is saved – it’s a beautiful thing!”
Reaching those vulnerable to abortion
Last year, her staff administered 98 pregnancy tests at the center and 95 through the mobile unit. She believes nearly 100-percent of the clients seen at the mobile unit are abortion-minded, “because they’re headed for the abortion clinic,” whereas only 10-percent of those coming to the building admit that they are.
“But, 90-percent of the women we see are single, so they have risk factors for abortion,” Hemric said.
One of those women named Chelsea participated in this year’s Babies Go to Congress, sponsored by Heartbeat International.
To continue helping the women they see, the staff and volunteers not only offer medical services, such as pregnancy tests, STD testing and treatment, and limited obstetrical ultrasounds, but they also provide an Earn While Your Learn program, M.O.M.S. (Moms Offering Moms Support) Bible study classes, a maternity clothes and baby items store, a sexual integrity program and post-abortion healing classes.
Director of the organization since 2008, Hemric continues to look for innovative ways to reach and serve women vulnerable for abortion.
“I want us to get better at what we’re doing,” she said.
“We’re embarking upon a new marketing campaign called ‘Bad Timing,’ she stated. “That’s exactly what a woman with an unplanned pregnancy is thinking … and it now ties in with the coronavirus.”
She expects the new campaign to launch later this spring.
A team effort
As she and her staff continue the work started more than 20 years ago (the center started as New Hope Pregnancy Care in 1999), Hemric recognizes the value of partnerships.
The center recently held its annual banquet with special guest speaker Kirk Walden of Heartbeat International. The event was very successful.
“We can’t do what we do without others,” Hemric said. “Love Life of the Triad, our Save the Storks unit – we cannot do this without them. NIFLA, Heartbeat … it’s all a team effort.”
