ROBERT PIERCE
• Leaders & Times
Liberal’s Grace Place Pregnancy Care Center holds two major fundraisers throughout the year, and the largest one is in less than a month.
Officials at the local pregnancy care center are preparing for the 2024 Grace Place fundraising banquet. Director Letty Hernandez said the event is designed to raise funds by soliciting donations so the agency can continue to provide needed services.
“It helps us keep our doors open,” she said.
For this year’s banquet, which will be held on Tuesday, September 17th at the Seward County Ag Building, Grace Place welcomes back nationally known speaker Pam Stenzel. There will also be a complimentary dinner that evening. Guests are asked to wear business attire and spend an hour and a half seeing the impact Grace Place is making on the liberal community and surrounding areas.
“We will have teen moms share their stories and hopefully we will be able to educate our local youth and the community about the work we do,” Hernandez said. “We hope that with the information Pam has to offer, we can educate moms and teens about how to prevent teen pregnancy and that we can educate families who can share the importance of donating to the types of services we provide.”
Hernandez said that although Grace Place is a nonprofit, its offerings are needed in the community.
“We educate families, single mothers and unwanted pregnancies, and they don’t just come for a day,” she said. “They stay for years after the child is born to get information that is very useful to them as adults. We provide classes that help in these areas. We are building a great future for these young mothers and also influencing the way families raise their children.”
One of Grace Place’s goals is to attract people who are passionate about the center’s work and who can help the center achieve its goals.
“One of our main goals is to acquire a new building or mobile unit, train a technician to perform ultrasounds with our equipment and educate our youth by expanding our educational program,” said Hernandez. “We need to become a medical clinic to be able to offer these ultrasound services. With all of these goals in mind, funding is necessary so we can continue to be that pre-service that makes an impact.”
Hernandez said Grace Place has the financial resources to purchase an ultrasound machine, but there is currently an obstacle preventing the center from obtaining the equipment.
“We cannot provide medical services in our current building, so we need to purchase our current building or another building or a mobile unit where we can provide ultrasound services,” she said. “The ultrasound helps women who are considering abortion to change their mind and give life to the child. We now need to go to the limited medical clinic to move forward with the purchase of this machine. To use this machine, we need a person who can do ultrasounds. We need to pay them.”
For those who wish to donate to Grace Place, Hernandez said lawmakers have now allowed donors to deduct 70 percent of their donations from their taxes.
“This is true worldwide,” she said. “If it’s a pregnancy care center and you donate there, you get a 70 percent tax credit.”
Hernandez said many women who undergo an ultrasound change their desire to have an abortion, and she explained why that is.
“At 12 weeks, you can see a real baby with arms, legs and feet,” she said. “It’s a developed fetus. A mother saw her baby on an ultrasound. The baby waved at her. When she saw that, she said, ‘That’s my baby, and I love my baby.’ These are things we’ve seen, the effect it has on the mother when she sees her baby on the screen. She realizes it’s a baby and not just a bunch of cells.”
Regarding abortions in Seward County, Hernandez said no information was available for 2023, but she said 29 abortions were performed in 2022.
“Now it’s different,” she said. “It’s difficult for us to get these numbers and we don’t know why.”
However, Hernandez added that there has not been much activity recently regarding local abortions.
“More mothers came to us for information about diapers, formula and clothing than women considering abortion,” she said. “The number of women who came to us considering abortion have chosen life. This year, not a single one has chosen abortion. There is only so much we can do this year. We cannot force them to make a decision, but we inform them of the options they have. We do not refer them to an abortion clinic, nor do we perform abortions in our facility.”
Grace Place has experienced budget deficits in recent years, but Hernandez said the center now has a more balanced budget thanks to grants and other funding.
“We can live off of that at the moment, but given our goals for the future, we expect that amount to be much higher,” she said.
Funds raised from the banquet will help Grace Place pay an educator to expand the center’s youth education program.
“We can pay a technician for training and her salary and buy the building or a mobile unit to run a limited medical clinic,” Hernandez said. “That allows us to pay for our utilities and the diapers. We have to buy a lot of diapers because we serve between 45 and 50 women a week and while they’re learning, they reuse the baby dollars they earn to buy those diapers.”
Hernandez said Grace Place’s biggest costs currently are diapers and cribs.
“We provide our mothers with a new cot and mattress free of charge after 30 hours of classes. Many babies have been born and blessed with a new bed because their mothers had classes either at school or by phone,” she said.
In the past, Grace Place’s hours of operation were limited, but due to increased demand for services, the center is now open Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
As for teen mothers in Seward County, Hernandez said there will be 30 new teens having babies in 2023.
“That affects 60 teens,” she said. “That includes the boyfriend. We’ve had five teens in Seward County who have had abortions. In 2023, we’ve had a total of 57 teen births at our hospital in Liberal and the surrounding area.”
The 2023 banquet was the first under Hernandez’s leadership and she was very pleased with the results.
“Our banquet last year was fantastic,” she said. “We achieved our goal of purchasing our ultrasound machine. We hope this year will be just as good or even better. It was a wonderful dinner and a wonderful speaker, and the stories the girls told were the highlight of my evening.”
Grace Place is currently in need of volunteers.
“We have two who have been the most dedicated from the beginning, and we need them,” Hernandez said. “They come once a week, but we receive donations almost daily, so we have a large amount of clothing that needs to be washed, folded and sorted.”
Hernandez said high school students can earn volunteer hours by volunteering at Grace Place.
“They can organize their schedule freely,” she said. “If they want to come twice a week or just on Fridays, we would be happy to have them.”
Although donations continue to come in, Hernandez said Grace Place is always in need of baby items.
“Diapers, stuffed animals, swings, strollers, high chairs, maternity clothes, these are the things we need most,” she said.
Grace Place’s other major fundraiser, the 1-mile, 5K and 10K Run Baby Runs in April, broke even.
“We would have liked to have seen a better turnout,” Hernandez said. “Maybe it was the weather. It was a pretty cold day, but it was fun. Everyone had fun and is looking forward to participating again next year. Maybe we’ll have more participants and can get the schools and teachers to bring their students.”
Seating for the September 17 banquet will begin at 6:45 p.m., with dinner expected to begin at 7:00 p.m.
“To register for the banquet, you can visit our website at graceplacepcc.com,” Hernandez said. “You can register as a guest and we are looking for hosts to host a table of eight. If anyone is interested in being one of our hosts, they can call us at 620-655-8050. We ask that you only invite adults as seating is limited. Business attire is complimentary for dinner. There will be an opportunity to make a monetary gift at the end of the banquet.”
If you have any further questions about the banquet, you can contact numerous places.
“You can visit our website,” Hernandez said. “You can also visit our Facebook page, Grace Place Pregnancy Care Center, and call with any questions. You can make reservations online. You can also donate on the website. If you can’t attend but would like to donate, you can visit our website. There is a QR code on our invitation that can make the process easier. We have also sent out our newsletter to most businesses, residents and surrounding areas. The newsletter provides information about our services. It also includes an invitation to the banquet and a letter where you can indicate how much you would like to donate or sponsor.”
Hernandez said she was very excited about the upcoming banquet.
“The day will be here sooner than we think, and I’m so excited to hear this speaker who has impacted many youth and many people in her career speaking for different pregnancy centers and all over the world,” she said. “She’s incredible. She did a great job last year, and that’s why we asked her to come back.”
