This Sunday, Respect Life Sunday, marks one year since our parish pregnancy center, The Upper Pinellas Pregnancy Center, moved to its permanent location at 80 North Walton, adjacent to the West Side of the Church parking lot. The Center's staff recently prepared a detailed report of the last year's activity. Since the report is quite lengthy, I've copied some pertinent information to share with you.

A. "THE MOVE"

This last year began with the completion of the physical move of the Upper Pinellas Pregnancy Center to 80 North Walton Ave. The Center was dedicated by Msgr. John McNulty with an Open House for donors and Parishioners on Respect Life Sunday, October 5, 1997. Moving has provided many benefits to the Center. Counselors and clients can now speak privately in the counseling room without distraction or interruption. We are able to assist more than one client at a time. There is adequate space to sort and store donations and room to organize them for easy distribution. Our visibility has improved and client's express greater ease in locating the Center. The number of "walk-in" clients has increased.

B. STAFFING

The Upper Pinellas Pregnancy Center continues under the direction of Karen Moran, Executive Director, and Mary Caesar, Administrative Director. Currently the Center has 37 active volunteers including: 18 counseling and staffing the Center; 7 ancillary services; 8 seasonal, trained counselors; 4 Hotline counselers
 
C. CENTER ACTIVITY

Currently the Center is open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9:30-12noon, and Tuesday evenings from 7-9pm. The evening hours have been very popular with clients and have been quite busy. We hope to add Thursday evenings beginning in October or November . Clients can also set an appointment to meet at any other time if more convenient. The Hotline continues to be in effect receiving calls from Friday afternoon through Monday morning. The Hotline is coordinated and supervised by Sandy Mancini. We have provided the necessary resources and reference materials needed for Hotline counselors to use at home. As a group, the volunteers meet once a year and attend regular volunteer staff meetings. This has been an active service receiving 4-6 calls per weekend. The number of callers with urgent needs has risen and they are doing a great deal of telephone counseling.

We have seen a marked increase in the number of people seeking advice on helping an abortion-minded woman. For example, a woman whose daughter's roommate is pregnant and planning to abort. She wishes to help prevent the abortion, but is unable to get the roommate to visit the Center, and asks what to do. (In some instances we have been able to reach the abortion-minded woman if she'll agree to speaking to a counselor on the phone) To better assist in this scenario, we have developed a packet of literature and information to send to the person trying to guide the abortion-minded woman. It includes information about how to respond to a woman in crisis, about abortion, fetal development, adoption, post abortion syndrome and counseling services, and our brochure. We have also purchased extra copies of the films A Matter of Life and Death and Your Crisis Pregnancy to loan to anyone interested.

The Upper Pinellas Pregnancy Center continues to network with other area pregnancy centers, adoption service providers, Healthy Start and the Tarpon Springs Health Department as well as many agencies providing the material assistance needed by our clients. We refer and receive referrals from all of these sources.

The Center continues to distribute layettes to client in their last trimester. Donors have been very generous in providing for the material needs of our clients. As always, the need for cribs and large diapers remains.

D. CENTER STATISTICS

Compete statistics are available regarding the use of the Center. A few notable highlights:

There has been continuous growth in all areas of service.

There have been 91 new clients since moving to the house, and 86 counseled phone calls.

By combining the number of new clients and counseled phone calls, you can determine the total number of different people reached by the Center. In the last 12 months, we have provided assistance to 177 new people.

A total of 483 client visits to the Center. This is an increase of 176% since 1996.

We are currently averaging 4 client visits a day, but have had as many as 11 in one day.

The average client visits the Center 4.5 times for counseling and material assistance. This is more frequent than most other centers and clients benefit by receiving ongoing counseling and support as needs change.

The Center gave away 43 cribs in the last 12 months. At this time there are 9 expectant mothers on our waiting list. By God's hand, a crib or cradle always comes by the birth and all of our children have had a place to sleep.

4 dozen layettes were made and given away.

Over 2600 diapers were provided for infants.

We have been blessed by the generosity of the St. Ignatius parish and our donors who have more than adequately provided for the material needs of our clients.

E. POST ABORTION COUNSELING

Marcia Cho-Chung-Hing coordinates the Post Abortion Counseling Services for the Center. Marcia has completed Project Rachael facilitator training. She has completed the development of the New Dawn post abortion counseling program she will utilize at the Upper Pinellas Pregnancy Center, and hopes to offer an independent program in the coming year.

A. PUBLICITY

Efforts to promote the Center have resulted in an increase in both clients and supporters. Our efforts are focused on targeting two groups of potential clients --Pregnant teens and abortion-minded women. Current national trends suggest that free pregnancy testing is no longer an enticement to visit a pregnancy center as tests are readily accessible. Newspaper advertisements continue in the area High School papers, (Tarpon Springs H.S., East Lake H.S., Palm Harbor University H.S., Clearwater Central Catholic) and at St. Pete Junior College. Our advertisement appears in each issue throughout the year. This fall we also purchased an advertisement in the Tarpon Springs H.S. Football Poster. This large poster shows the team's game schedule and is distributed by local merchants to students. The Upper Pinellas Pregnancy Center brochure has been translated into Spanish to be given out at the Health Department. We currently have one Spanish-speaking counselor to meet with clients.