CHARLOTTE — The teenager who showed up in the front room of a house on Monroe Street in mid-April was pregnant, homeless and scared. But as providence would have it, the house had become the headquarters of the Charlotte chapter of Birthright a few months earlier, and hope and help waited inside.
Birthright is the newest crisis pregnancy support service to come to the Charlotte area. It offers free, confidential support for mothers including pregnancy tests, personal care items, baby and maternity clothes, and referrals for prenatal care, housing, education and other essential needs.
It also offers a caring atmosphere, exactly what clients like the homeless teen mom need when they are in crisis, said executive director Hank Chardos.
“We like to say that we don’t have an office, we have a home,” Chardos said. “I tell the volunteers who work in the office to say a prayer before they come in. That prayer is going to help us be good listeners and provide hope to those who come to us. We offer a non-judgmental and loving atmosphere that often isn’t available to these clients anywhere else.”
Birthright International is one of the longest-running crisis pregnancy services, tracing its roots to the first Birthright founded in Toronto in 1968 by Louise Summerhill, a mother of seven who wanted to help women facing unplanned pregnancies. Since then, the organization has expanded to more than 250 sites in the U.S., Canada and Africa.
Chardos has decades of experience with the organization. He and his wife, Sally, founded a Birthright in Columbia, S.C., in 1980 and ran it for 41 years until the couple decided to move full-time to the Charlotte area to be closer to family. When they learned about the large number of abortions performed annually in Charlotte, Chardos thought a Birthright location might help the problem.
Since opening in December, Birthright has helped 30 moms, two with babies due at the end of May. Seven office volunteers have received training to answer phones and greet clients when they arrive.
Response from the public has been extremely positive, Chardos said.
“We’ve actually had more people making donations than we’ve had clients,” he said.
Donors have given money, maternity and baby clothes and other supplies, and one room of the house is now dedicated to supplies and clothes. Women from St. Matthew Church knitted more than three dozen pairs of baby booties to be given to clients. Six parishes have participated in the organization’s signature “Baby Bottle” campaign, filling baby bottles with donations that are then returned to the office.
Chardos said another big source of support is prayer. More than 100 people have signed up to participate in the Birthright prayer line, praying daily for the clients and volunteers.
Chardos is proud of the way Birthright uses monetary donations. On average, 97 cents of every dollar donated is spent on Birthright’s work.
One of the biggest challenges has been getting the word about Birthright out to people, Chardos said. Five new billboards around the Charlotte region share information about the organization, and efforts are under way to increase Birthright’s social media presence. Support from Catholic parishes has been strong, but Chardos is also trying to get support from other denominations as well.
Building awareness will help more people like that homeless teen and other mothers and fathers, Chardos said, stressing the fact that fathers can receive help from the group as well. He recently was able to help the father of one of his clients’ babies on the path to getting his high school diploma and counseling services.
Services in Spanish are also available through a translator who links with a client via video chat.
“If you say you’re pro-life, you have to be able to provide opportunities for moms in crisis to get help, and the fathers as well if they are in the picture,” Chardos said. “Whenever a client comes to us, that’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help her and her baby. We tell each mom that we want to go through the pregnancy with them.”
— Christina Lee Knauss