By Carolyn Cole/Staff Writer
published Jan. 8, 2009

Bargain seekers buying quality clothes and wares can help volunteers reach out to Mustang women facing an unplanned pregnancy.

The Mustang ReSale Shop at 238 N. Mustang Road in the Trade Center Shopping Center opened this week to help support the Your Choice Pregnancy Center. Store hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Volunteers will host a grand opening celebration this weekend with refreshments and a drawing for $25 of in-store credit.

When volunteers asked for residents to donate clothes and household items in good condition to start the store, Manager Kimberly McCright said they were overwhelmed by the community’s generosity. All workers are volunteers, she said and after rent is paid, profits will benefit the center.

The store will always need more donations and volunteers, she said.

“We are hoping it’s going to be a big success, and everything will be selling down, and we are going to be constantly refurbishing things,” she said. “We are hoping to keep that momentum going.”

Volunteers started Your Choice Pregnancy Center almost three years ago, after Birth Choice workers discontinued its Mustang outreach program. Director Pati Colston said several volunteers who were involved in the Birth Choice program still saw a need in Mustang and started the center.

Between Your Choice’s opening in April 2006 and October 2008, the nonprofit’s volunteers have served 949 clients in their office and counseled 1,070 by phone. They have offered 200 free pregnancy tests and logged 8,263 volunteer hours.

“We have put everything we have into it,” Colston said. “We are really hoping and praying it (the resale shop) will be successful.”

Colston estimated volunteers help about 50 women each month, by offering free pregnancy tests, helping them sign up for assistance through government agencies or other charities and providing maternity clothing, baby formula, diapers, baby clothes and other necessities.

Colston said Your Choice volunteers receive training and offer women confidentiality. Most women seeking help are between the ages of 16 and 21, although she said they have helped girls as young as 13 and women as old as 45.

In most cases, the pregnancies were unplanned. Many of the women are facing motherhood on their own, and Colston said she can see the fear in their faces.

It’s easy for her to recognize their panic because she’s been in their shoes. At 18 years old, she learned she was pregnant one week after enrolling in college.

“It definitely changes your life for the good,” she said. “My daughter is 21 now. She is beautiful and perfect. I couldn’t imagine my life without her.”

While raising her daughter, she returned to college and obtained a master’s degree in social work. Colston said she never tells her clients that life is easy but wants the women to find hope.

Almost all of Your Choice volunteers have similar stories, were adopted children or adoptive parents, she said. They all share a love for the pregnant women and their infants, Colston said.

“Our children are our blessings,” she said. “We see each child as a gift from God, and we definitely see other children that way.”

Your Choice volunteers’ goal is to discourage women from having abortions and offer services to help them through their pregnancies to either raise the child or find a family to adopt the newborn. Colston said they hope to raise enough money through the resale shop to buy a sensitive ultrasound machine and hire a nurse to operate it. If a pregnant woman can hear the fetal heartbeat, Colston said she is less likely to seek an abortion.

Volunteers also plan to offer more parenting classes for new families, which Colston said can help answer questions and give mothers a support group of women facing many of the same problems.

In several years, Colston said volunteers would like to open a maternity home for women older than age 18, who are homeless during their pregnancy. She said they have found there is a gap for services available to homeless young adults, while homes exist for younger teenagers.

The resale shop idea follows a model used by a pregnancy center in Arlington, Texas, McCright said. Your Choice is run entirely on donations and money raised during an annual walk, which depending on the weather, could be a bust. McCright said a volunteer learned of the success of the Arlington resale shop, and the board members decided to give it a try.

“People can come in save money, help a charity and save time, especially with this economy,” she said.

The Mustang ReSale Shop offers quality clothing for the whole family, McCright said, as well as shoes, books and household items. The group received donations of housewares after a local tea room closed and new fixtures from a retail clothing store moving into a new location.
“We try to give everybody a really nice shopping experience here,” she said.

For information or to volunteer, call the Your Choice office at (405) 376-4547.