“I
wondered why somebody didn’t do something.
Then I realized that I am somebody,” is a saying that is decoupaged on a
rock on my desk. Marion Stocker, the
founder of the Society for the Preservation of Human Dignity (PHD) put this
saying into action when she felt empathetic toward unmarried women who felt
that abortion was their only option. In
1971 she started a hotline in her home.
It was the first pregnancy help center in Illinois.
Today
PHD provides counseling and support services to over 700 clients and their
immediate families. Their counseling
services include: pregnancy support, 0-3 parenting skills, crisis intervention,
grief and loss of a child/pregnancy, pregnancy decision making, post adoption,
post abortion and postpartum depression.
They support their clients through services such as pregnancy planning,
pregnancy testing, childbirth preparation, community linkage and referral, baby
and maternity closet, mom and tot classes and educational opportunities through
their library and classes.
PHD
also has a prevention arm called, “Motivate.”
It includes a program which focuses on healthy sexuality and
relationships for adolescents and learning the power of abstinence, one program
which teaches parents how to talk to their children about sex, another program
for parents of toddlers and preschoolers and an anti-bullying character
education program for grade school students.
Finally,
PHD offers a Baby Closet which distributes baby food, clothing, formula,
diapers, winter coats and layettes.
Each layette provides a baby’s needs throughout their first 9 months of
life. More than 80% of PHD’S clients are
at or below the poverty level and receive items from the Baby Closet for
free. But this could not be possible
without donors. PHD is one example of an
organization that would benefit from a baby shower. For more information about this organization
please visit their website at www.sphd.org.
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