Hapeville Center Supports Mothers, Saves Babies

PRISCILLA GREEAR, Staff Writer

Published: September 2, 2004

HAPEVILLE—At the Advice & Aid Pregnancy Problem Center, Carol Garcia pointed proudly to an image of her son Jose on a display board covered with pictures of babies whose mothers chose life after considering abortion.

Meanwhile Jose, now 18 months old, toddled around with his 2-year-old brother Spencer, striking buttons on his Playskool toy and watching “Dragon Tails” on TV.

In a cozy meeting room, where a framed picture expresses God’s reassuring promise that “the plans I have for you (are) to give you a future and a hope,” Garcia explained that she once considered aborting Jose because of her seemingly impossible circumstances.

She had just had her first child and was about to be evicted from her apartment when she learned she was pregnant again. Jose’s father is from Mexico and later returned there.

In despair she turned to the Hapeville crisis pregnancy center, which helped her decide to keep her child, and gave her emotional support and financial and material help through the center’s director, Terry Gibbs, and a volunteer, Jessie Smarr.

“I was fixing to ask Miss Terry to take (Spencer). She helped me to get back into my apartment, showed me how to do resumes. She and Miss Jessie have really been there for me, helped me to find a job,” Garcia said. “I didn’t want to bring another baby into the world with nowhere to go, no people to help me.”

The 21-year-old said as she watched her children that being a mother is really difficult. She stays at home with the children because Jose has asthma. Although she receives food stamps, she was told to pursue her high school equivalency diploma before she could receive welfare support.

But she said, “I’m glad that I didn’t have an abortion. It’s not his fault what I did. I look at him every day and I’m glad.”

The center at 411 King Arnold St., near St. John the Evangelist Church and School, is celebrating its 20th anniversary of protecting the unborn and supporting women like Garcia.

Gibbs, who smiles easily and has a vivacious, motherly way about her that seems to put people at ease, reports that so far in 2004 they’ve saved some 670 babies, up from 635 during all of 2003.

“We’re busier than ever. We’ve got girls coming out of the woodwork,” she said.

But as it celebrates, the center, which relies on donations, is in dire financial straits and is asking individuals and parishes to provide financial support to enable it to stay open.

For one, its annual dinner-dance fund-raiser is being held on Friday, Sept. 10, from 7-11 p.m. at St. Ann’s Church in Marietta. The guest speaker is Archbishop John F. Donoghue. There will be a silent auction, catered dinner and music by a three-piece band.

Originally known as the Pregnancy Problem Center, the center was founded by Catholics Jean Hess and Fran Payton to support women in crisis pregnancies and show them the option of adoption or of seeking parenting support as alternatives to abortion. Hess, a nurse, spearheaded a campaign in 1993 to purchase the building when the owner retired, and many Catholics came forward to help. For years they had worked there rent-free because of the support of owner O.P. Rintye.

The center receives about 50 calls a day, including many abortion-minded callers. In 2003 they assisted 2,943 clients, distributed 12,300 diapers, 206 child safety seats, 54 bassinets/cribs and 325 strollers, turning nobody away and providing all services for free. There’s a room for women who need to stay overnight in emergencies.

Now the center has closed through early September to focus on fund-raising. It receives no money from the archdiocese or regular, ongoing financial support from parishes, but does receive a third of proceeds from the nearby St. Vincent de Paul Society thrift store. Gibbs has spoken about the life-saving work at three parishes this year and is eager to speak at more, hoping they will consider supporting the center on Respect Life Sunday in October. She stresses that while not an archdiocesan entity, it is the only Catholic crisis pregnancy center in North Georgia, outside of Catholic Social Services’ program, has a predominantly Catholic board, and is consistent with church teaching on sexuality and contraception. She also noted that similar interdenominational centers are supported by as many as 35 to 75 Protestant congregations. The archbishop has encouraged pastors to let her speak on the ministry and to consider giving financial support. The center also needs volunteers.

“The Catholic Church is the one behind the pro-life movement, and I need them to get behind me,” Gibbs said. “We need to get a commitment from people to get behind us for the long run.”

Mary Boyert, director of the archdiocesan Pro-Life Office, believes the center does “wonderful” work and encourages people to attend the fund-raiser and offer support.

“Any money people can give to them would be well received and well used. I know they’re very careful. They don’t use lots of money on frivolous things,” she said. “They are in an area where there are a lot of people in dire financial straits…Their financial needs are really high.”

She called Gibbs “very dedicated” and one “who has brought the center to another level.”

Gibbs is deeply grateful to churches that have made donations, including St. John Neumann Church in Lilburn, which earlier this year through a second collection raised some $10,000 and enabled the center to stay open. Several women came up to her after she spoke and told her they had had abortions. Her parish, St. Philip Benizi in Jonesboro, recently donated $4,400. She also appreciates the many churches that have held clothing and diaper drives, like Prince of Peace Church in Buford, which donated nearly $15,000 in baby items. The Georgia Knights of Columbus, their biggest supporters, provide some $6,000 annually.

They have a $15,000 ultrasound machine donated by the late Lois Nichols, but currently don’t have the funds to turn the center into the medical clinic it must be to use it. They provide the only free pregnancy tests in the area, required for abortions, and send women to a doctor’s group that has agreed to provide free ultrasounds. One doctor has agreed to serve as medical director if the center becomes a clinic.

In contrast to the drab street outside, the center has a warm, comforting environment with madonna images and Scripture verses lining the walls. The carpeted waiting room, wallpapered in soft green leaves, has sage green sofas, a box of toys and a rocking horse. A storeroom is filled with everything from handmade blankets to clothes and baby bottles. One thank-you letter hanging on a bulletin board says, “May the good Lord continue to allow you to help those in need as we were.”

As the phone and doorbell steadily rang, Gibbs noted the value of their inner city location, which lets them serve many women from “the streets of Atlanta.”

“I’ve picked up girls in the middle of the night downtown on a pay phone because they can’t get into a shelter,” said the director.

Their most effective tool is their ad in the phonebook and the free pregnancy test is the next big draw, which gives her a chance to say, “Hey, let’s talk about your situation.” She feels strongly about not misleading callers, but said, “I feel just as strongly that we have to do whatever it takes to get them in here.”

The majority are in their second or third trimester of pregnancy. She noted the irony that premature babies have survived at 19 weeks’ gestation while in Georgia abortion is legal through 26 weeks. The center is “very supportive of adoptions” but assists with few, as Gibbs has found many women have negative associations with foster care and with the Division of Family and Children Services.

One of the first things she does is help women find solutions to problems with housing, employment and relationships. She tries to locate emergency food and shelter when needed.

“When women are considering abortion, a lot of times it has nothing to do with pregnancy. It’s other circumstances. They had a boyfriend leave, lost a job, are living in a shelter. My main goal is to find out what’s going on in their life and try to fix whatever it is . . . Sometimes it only takes five minutes talking to women and they change their minds,” she said.

Gibbs believes the help provided must address the real circumstances of the woman’s life. “If we’re telling them, ‘It’s going to be OK, have your baby,’ you have to be there for them,” she said.

Smarr, a tall, quiet woman with a calming presence, said in counseling she tries to affirm to women that God has a purpose for their baby and tries to be a listening ear. “Some people just come in upset and need someone to listen to them.”

But they also show women coming in the black binder, which contains pictures of aborted fetuses at various stages of development. One of her most effective tools is a five-minute video showing abortion at different stages of fetal development. They also offer abstinence and natural family planning education and a book of referrals for various types of social support. She and a volunteer nurse offer parenting classes and a certified instructor offers childbirth classes. She refers women who’ve had abortions to the Post Abortion Treatment and Healing program.

Gibbs, who feels a special calling to this ministry, first volunteered for the center in 1987, opening her own home to girls with nowhere to go. She knows firsthand their pain, as she got pregnant as a teen and fearfully considered abortion until a parish priest helped her to decide to have the child and place the child with an adoptive family. She became center director in 2001, asked to take over by one of the founders.

“From my personal experience of almost having an abortion and learning about abortion, I saw what it was and I have not been the same,” Gibbs said. “ I can’t get it out of my head. It’s so heavy on my heart.”

Around lunchtime, Gibbs let in a 15-year-old, even though the center was closed, along with another woman pregnant with twins who needed diapers. The teenager had been supported by the center when she became pregnant in early adolescence and had come back since then for pregnancy tests. This day she brought her sister-in-law by for a pregnancy test.

The teen said the center did help her realize she’s not ready to be a mother.

“We need a center like this because it does help teenagers. If we didn’t have a place like this we wouldn’t have nowhere to go… I think there should be more places like this for people who need help for their babies,” she said. “It does help people who are pregnant. It helps a lot. It teaches a lot of things about pregnancy and being a mother and how abortion is not a good thing.”

Garcia also likes to continue to come by, as she has strained relations with her family.

“Everything is positive here. It makes me feel good, like even though they’re not blood family that I could go to them even if I don’t need anything. I still know I could come to talk about any problem, anything in the world.”

For information on the center or for fund-raiser tickets contact Terry Gibbs at (404) 763-4357 or AAPPC1@aol.com. Checks payable to the Pregnancy Problem Center may be sent to the center at 411 King Arnold St., Hapeville, GA 30354.