A local outreach nonprofit that provides classes and resources for expectant and established parents has good reason to celebrate.
In January, Safe Choice Pregnancy Care Center was able to pay off a 15-year mortgage on its 220 Sailors Drive location almost eight years early.
“God has truly blessed the center, even through the pandemic. We’re trying to trust the Lord to lead us in the direction he wants us to be in,” said the center’s director, Rhenda Booth.
The early payoff is due, in large part, to contributions from such local organizations as Faith, Hope and Charity Recycle Store Inc., which provided a grant that paid the pregnancy center’s mortgage the past several years.
“Faith, Hope and Charity played a huge part (in this). With them paying our mortgage for those years, we were able to put more toward the principal. Without that grant, we would not have been able to pay it off as quickly,” Booth said.
Being officially mortgage free will allow the center, which operates primarily through donations and grant funding, to further its fundamental mission -— providing educational classes and other support for mothers and mothers-to-be, as well as all family members raising young children.
“We do free pregnancy tests and we have an earn while you learn program. Girls, guys and families can come and learn how to take care of themselves and their babies while they’re pregnant or even after they (have a baby),” Booth said. “They will earn baby bucks and they can use them to purchase things from our baby store including new baby beds and car seats. They can also come here once a month to get free diapers. We do encourage them to also come for the class because it is educational. Whether it’s your first baby or your 10th, you still learn something.”
Booth said the center also offers a life skills class that covers such areas as setting and maintaining a budget.
A new Safe Choice program takes the center’s parenting class to students at Gilmer High School who are either expecting or are already raising children.
“We actually do it onsite instead of them having to come to the center, which makes it easier for the girls to participate. We have one who’s already graduated,” Booth said.
Gilmer High translator and bookkeeper Maria Nieves, who oversees the school parenting program, said Safe Choice volunteers meet with students once a week during one of their free periods or elective classes.
“The students can take different parenting classes and earn points to get stuff from (the pregnancy center). In addition, the students and the ladies from the pregnancy center have been working to help organize the baby areas of our clothes closet. I really appreciate the ladies and all the work they’ve done,” she added.
‘Everyone is welcome’
Safe Choice was founded in 1990, by Fred and Sharon Bailey of Choose Life Ministries, to provide care for women facing unplanned pregnancies.
The center started out on Sailors Drive near the current location, moved to another location on Dalton Street and then back to the 220 Sailors address where it’s operated since 2010.
The building was rented the first few years and purchased under mortgage in 2013, Booth noted.
The center closed for nearly two months last year after the onset of the pandemic, but reopened by June.
“We deal mainly with mommies, babies and older ladies, all of which are very vulnerable,” Booth noted.
An online class option is now available for participants already enrolled in parenting classes.
“They get the same earn while you learn benefits, but can do it from home. That helps them not having to come to the center every week. We’re probably going to (keep) going on that path because of the technology that’s out there right now,” Booth said.
In-person classes are still offered, but the center is now seeing only one client at a time, Booth noted.
“We do prefer for them to come in for the first time so we can get to know them a little better and find out if the in-person or online (way) is best for them. A lot of (clients) feel more comfortable doing the online classes, but you also have the ones who’d rather come and have that personal one on one with a volunteer. We love that, as well, because you form a relationship with them,” she added.
“We’re flexible. If there’s somebody who can’t make it during the days we’re open, we try to find a way to accommodate them. We want everybody who can to participate and we’re not opposed on coming on a different day if that’s the only day they can get here.”
The center also accepts donations of diapers, wipes and new baby items, Booth confirmed.
“We go through tons of diapers and wipes,” she added.
Safe Choice welcomes parents and grandparents of all ages, Booth said.
“We do have grandmas who come and take classes. There are a lot of grandmas who have responsibility of their grandkids nowadays. Everybody is welcome here,” she added.