Posted on Friday, 16th April 2010 by admin
St. Gerard’s Center for Life is a Catholic Pregnancy Resource Center whose mission is to assist mothers make life-affirming decisions (e.g., keeping their baby or placing their child for adoption) by providing them with emotional, material, and spiritual support (i.e., assist the mothers in getting their children baptized in the church, speak to them about living chastely, and address the evils of contraception and abortion as destroyers of family and person). We also work with mothers to become self-sufficient by helping them with housing, employment, and education. Since opening on March 25, 2004, we have served more than 2,800 mothers and children-in-need, more than 370 babies lives have been saved, and over 50 children have been baptized as Catholics! We also have a Chastity Program entitled, “Keeping Hearts Pure.” The chastity program is mandatory and all mothers who want diapers for their children must attend! About two weeks ago we had so many mothers who wanted to come to the class that we literally did not have enough chairs! All of this has occurred through Jesus and the most powerful intercession of the Blessed Mother!
Most recently, we initiated our “Saving Sacred Lives Campaign” in order to raise money for our ultrasound machine and services program. I am happy to report that we have achieved our goal of being funded to purchase the ultrasound machine through the efforts of the Knights of Columbus and other groups such as Y-life who rallied to obtain support for us. The support we have received for the ultrasound is great and we will continue to need funding. It is important that everyone knows that the money for the ultrasound equipment and services has gone in the restrictive reserve account and will not be spent on anything but those services.
- In order to maintain the integrity of our program we would like to implement the following plan:
1. Need: We are in constant need of sustaining the program and meeting expenses.
1a. Solutions: I am willing to come to any Catholic Church and do a Baby Bottle Drive on behalf of our program. The advantages of this is that our program gets exposure and we are able to get support within a short time frame. I have a proposal that I send to pastor of the church which explains about the drive.
1b. We are having our 6th annual mothers banquet on Sunday, May 16, 2010 at Holy Angels Parish/Hall in Meriden, CT beginning with a holy hour at 3:00PM. The dinner is at 4:30PM. The keynote speaker is David Bereit, who is the National director of the 40 Days for Life Campaign! The tickets cost $40.00 per person. We are asking that churches host a table for $300.00 or if anyone wanted to assist in underwriting the costs of the banquet (i.e., assist in paying for the speaker, etc.) we would be grateful for that support. If you would like a ticket or to host/underwrite the banquet please contact, Ceil Donahue at 860-623-9367.
1c. We also have a “Save a Baby’s Life Pledge Program” in which anyone can become a “committed donor” where they agree to assist us financially on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis (please feel free to donate here at this site).
1d. Finally, we have a relationship with TD Bank that has an “Affinity Program.” Essentially, any one who has an account with TD Bank would let the customer service representative know that they would like to code their account with “St. Gerard’s Center for Life.” We need as many people as possible with TD accounts identify us to the customer representative and then give them the code. At the end of the year the bank would give us a percentage of the profits based on the number of people who coded their accounts with us. Please let everyone know that by doing this their account is not charged nor are they giving any of their money directly to us. We also would not have access to their account or account information!
Posted in Theresa's Column | Uncategorized
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