By Kirsten Kirtley, Senior Reporter
A new pregnancy center that will provide free and confidential services to both women and men is opening this spring in Alva.
Hope Pregnancy Center provides information on parenting, adoption and abortion for parents of all ages who may be dealing with an unexpected pregnancy.
If a woman needs proof of pregnancy to qualify for services such as SoonerCare and WIC, or just needs to know if she is pregnant, the center will provide free testing along with several other services.
Charity Lyon, an adjunct communication professor at Northwestern, will be the director of the pregnancy center.
“We care for the parents who are making decisions about their unplanned pregnancy,” Lyon said. “We want to be encouraging and supportive. We seek to offer them factual information that’s unbiased and love and care for them no matter what decision they make. That’s our goal.”
The pregnancy center will be at 427 Barnes Ave., Suite 4, in the Downtown Mall and is opening around April. Hope Pregnancy Centers are located in Edmond, Oklahoma City, Ardmore, Tulsa and Shawnee. The company also has a mobile unit.
“We have a lot of people in this part of the country who have been active as donors, volunteers and supporters who really wanted to get some services offered out here,” Lyon said.
The center’s parent organization, Oklahoma Baptist Homes for Children, started out as an orphanage more than 100 years ago when a baby was dropped off at someone’s doorstep.
Oklahoma Baptist Homes for Children now provides numerous services, such as family-style living for children in need of a place to live.
The organization has a program that gives single moms the opportunity to get back on their feet while living with their children. The mothers are provided a free place to live as long as they are either attending school or holding a job, and they can also receive counseling and attend life-skill classes. The life-skill classes teach women a number of things, such as budgeting, basic car maintenance and how to cook healthy meals.
When a woman goes in to one of the centers to take a pregnancy test, a volunteer sits with them while they wait for their results. If the test is positive, the patient is then asked what their circumstances and concerns are and receives help while looking at her options.
If the woman chooses to parent her future child, she has the opportunity to enroll in Empowered Parenting classes. The woman can then meet with a mentor. Both moms and dads are eligible to take the classes that can help them throughout pregnancy, prepare them for childbirth and help them become positive parents.
When either parent completes a lesson, they can earn what the center calls “baby bucks.” Baby bucks can be used to purchase items at the center’s baby boutique. The baby boutique has items such as car seats, cribs and baby clothes that are either donated from people or purchased by the center.
If the parent or parents decide they want to explore adoption, the center has a number of adoption agencies that they can recommend. The center also offers abortion-recovery classes for both moms and dads.
“We explored having a pregnancy center out this way because we have a college, and the majority of women who come in for services are college-aged,” Lyon said.