Dunlap: Center hopes to offer prenatal help

DUNLAP, Tenn. — Pregnancy can be a scary time for girls and young women who don’t feel prepared for parenthood, but residents of Sequatchie County want to offer a means of support.

“A lot of times these girls don’t know where to go, who to talk to. It’s just overwhelming,” said Dunlap resident Pam Mooneyham, one of a group of Sequatchie County residents planning a new women’s care center. “We’re just trying to show them a lot of support and love and care and how the community steps up” to help them.

Volunteers are trying to raise $30,000 to open a nonprofit women’s care center in town that would offer prenatal support services, discount baby gear and other services to women who might otherwise consider an abortion.

The center would be a satellite office of the Women’s Care Center of Rhea County, organizers said.

In Sequatchie County, the teen birth rate was 12.9 births per 1,000 females between ages 10 and 17 in 2007, the most recent year available. The teen birth rate is higher in Rhea County, at 19.3 births per 1,000 teenage girls, according to the Tennessee Department of Health.

An outpouring of support from area residents and churches signifies the need for these women’s services, Ms. Mooneyham said. Organizers have already raised close to $8,000 and are planning a fundraising banquet in April, she said.

Care center planners are looking for a location and hope to open up by late summer.

The nonprofit Rhea County center opened in 1985, Executive Director Lenita Sanders said. It offers crisis pregnancy services, including smoking cessation programs and vouchers to shop for baby food and supplies in an on-site store filled with donated or new items.

The center connects expectant mothers to adoption services, she said.

“Especially when it’s real young girls, what 14- or 15-year-old is ready to be a parent? We certainly try to bring the adoption option in a very positive way,” she said.

It also helps women sign up for financial support such as the federal Women, Infants and Children program. WIC provides food, health care referrals and nutrition education for low-income pregnant women or mothers of young children at risk of poor nutrition.

Those kinds of services are needed for women in Sequatchie and surrounding counties such as Bledsoe, Ms. Mooneyham said.

As a business owner who has worked in insurance and real estate, Ms. Mooneyham said, she has often encountered women in need of prenatal support.

“They need housing. They need WIC,” she said. “Over the years, it has grown to be a really big need.”

The Rhea County center now offers pregnancy testing and sonograms, while the new satellite office will only offer nonmedical services, Ms. Sanders said.