For the team at Birthright St. Charles, 2017 has been a year filled to the brim with joy, change, and growth.
We are so blessed and proud to have served over 600 women in the greater St. Charles area this past year, including providing over $70,000 in direct financial assistance and gifting more than 130 care packages to new and expectant mothers. Our incredible team of volunteers, the true lifeblood of our organization, have put in a collective of more than 5,000 volunteer hours to help make all of this and more possible.
We have had the joy of seeing over 100 babies born to Birthright moms and found that the top 3 most popular baby names chosen by Birthright clients in 2017 were:
- Greyson
- Evelyn
- Mason
Over the course of the year, we have implemented the use of a new database in order to better serve our clients and have added two new outreach positions to our team, allowing us to have a greater social media presence and the privilege of sharing our mission with over 2,500 community members, including students at various high schools and universities.
We adopted a new logo and look in order to better reflect the warmth with which we hope to welcome all of our clients as well as the vibrancy that their lives bring to ours.
We have been blessed to reinstate our Heaven and Earth Program which allows organizations, families and even individuals who feel so called to provide direct financial support to the clients that we serve. Often, this support can literally move heaven and earth to ensure the care, health and safety of a woman in what is often her greatest moment of need.
In our efforts to fulfill our client-centered approach to care through holistic support of each individual woman we encounter, we have begun working towards additional areas of support, including the ability to provide every mom we walk alongside with a package of self-care items in addition to the baby supplies we currently gift her.
Reflecting on this past year, it is with hearts glowing with gratitude for an amazing and impactful 2017 that we extend our thanks to each of our supporters, volunteers, the fellow service organizations which we are so blessed to serve alongside, and most of all, our clients—for their bravery and for giving us the opportunity to be a small part of their story.
We so look forward to continuing our work in 2018 in the hopes that we can remain a beacon of hope for those facing the stress of an untimely pregnancy and positively impact the lives of even more women and their families.
