A pregnancy help center in Sacramento, Calif., is celebrating a half-century of service to the community, and in honor of that milestone it is launching a scholarship fund to help women better their lives and that of their families.
“We’re just developing (the fund),” said Marie Leatherby, executive director for Sacramento Life Center. “We serve a lot of pregnant women, and we wanted to be able to help them so they can finish school.”
Leatherby said she approached the board with the idea of establishing a scholarship fund in honor of the center’s longevity. Members of the founding board were also contacted.
“They were very excited about the idea and put up the initial $25,000 to start the fund,” Leatherby said.
A long-time volunteer, Pam Anderson, whom Leatherby described as “amazing” and who had “volunteered in the center for years and years, just doing everything,” passed away earlier this year. The scholarship fund is named after Anderson and a center founder.
“So, it’s the Connie Koppes and Pam Anderson Scholarship Fund,” Leatherby said. “Pam’s family contributed another $25,000. We had an idea, and God blessed it.”
Later this summer, a scholarship committee will select two to four women to receive the first awards, which will likely be $2,500 to $3,000, she added.
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Empowering women
The scholarship fund is not the first time Sacramento Life Center has helped a pregnant client who wanted to complete her education. The center and its supporters assisted a young nursing student a few years ago who experienced an unplanned pregnancy and feared her parents will stop their financial support if she didn’t abort.
“She didn’t even want to tell her parents because she knew they would cut off support,” Leatherby recalled. “I immediately said, ‘If that’s a reason for you wanting to abort, I’ll look to our donors to help you pay your schooling. I knew we’d have people to help, and we did.”
The woman chose life and gave birth to twins.
That experience led to the idea of establishing a scholarship fund.
“It doesn't just have to be a degree program; it could be something like the community colleges or they could be in medical assistant training or other types of trainings as well,” Leatherby said. “We just to help women get ahead.”
To help spread the word to center supporters, Leatherby and the board hosted a “VIP event” three weeks ago, she said. Through this endeavor, they gained encouragement and additional donations. She said they also plan to talk about the program at that annual fall fundraising gala.
Making clients aware about the scholarship fund involves knowing which ones are in school.
“We’re going back through our database to call all those who were in school or other patients we think could benefit from (the fund),” Leatherby said.
Applications will be accepted through July, she added.
Fifty years of service and growth
Sacramento Life Center began 50 years ago as a hotline, Leatherby said. The services have greatly expanded in the decades since, becoming a medical clinic more than 20 years ago. In addition to pregnancy tests and limited
as the client receives an ultrasound conducted by
a member of the center's medical staff/Marie Leatherby
obstetrical ultrasounds, the center’s on-site nurses and nurse practitioners provide STD testing, natural family planning, abortion pill reversal services, and women’s health exams. Pregnancy options education, patient advocacy and resources, materials assistance, pregnancy loss recovery, and a men’s program are also offered.
The space for these services has also grown.
“Five years ago, we bought a much larger building, and we just paid off that mortgage this year,” Leatherby said. “We’re able to you double, triple the capacity at this great location. Donors really stepped up to the fire. We have a 5,500 square foot building now whereas we were in that little 2,000 square foot office.”
The center also operates a mobile clinic.
Sacramento Life Center sees about 2,500 women a year and is nationally accredited, she added.
“God has just blessed us with a big staff. We usually have eight people on the clinic side (every day),” she said.
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Growth also has taken place via connection with other pregnancy centers in the state. When the NIFLA v. Becerra case emerged, California’s pregnancy centers banded together to fight for freedom of speech. That connection continues with a private Facebook page for directors and various meetings in-person and online.
“We have regional meetings where all the centers get together, and then we have what's called California Alliance of Pregnancy Care,” Leatherby said. “We’ve all grown together. We've known each other. We work together very well here California. We’re proud of what we've accomplished. We have a good majority of us that work together and know each other and help each other.”
As Sacramento Life Center continues growing in numerous ways, leadership looks to the future with optimism and hope. Leatherby, who has served as executive director for ten years, said she and the board and staff look toward their “next big goal.”
“We are looking to open another site in South Sacramento,” she said. “We're just really proud of how we keep improving and growing.”
