CHARLOTTE — At the end of last year, lack of funding nearly forced Be Not Afraid to shut down its ministry of helping parents carry their baby to term and not choose abortion after receiving a poor prenatal diagnosis.
But the Catholic nonprofit reached out to past supporters, parishes, families they have helped over the years, and the media, and the response was overwhelming.
To keep operating beyond 2018, BNA set a fundraising goal of $25,000. That was met with just one of the many donations the ministry received, a gift from a foundation set up by a family they had helped. A BNA family in Connecticut also made a donation of $10,000.
“Suffice to say, we believe we have raised enough money to ensure our continued operation beyond just this year,” the ministry’s co-founder, Tracy Winsor, recently announced.
Feedback they received also helped Winsor appreciate how much BNA has grown from its original mission 10 years ago in the Diocese of Charlotte as a “peer support ministry” to “a case management service” that assists parents across the U.S. and in other countries, she said.
“We no longer are just ‘talking’ to parents; now we are coordinating care, helping parents identify their needs and providing connections and referrals that seek to address their needs,” she said.
Medical professionals told BNA they consider the ministry “a partner in supporting parents carrying to term following a prenatal diagnosis,” she noted.
Since its founding by Winsor and co-founder Sandy Buck in 2008, BNA has supported over 140 families and welcomed 149 babies in 12 states as well as in Finland, Spain and Australia. Several dioceses in the U.S. have used BNA as a model for building their own similar ministries to families who need help carrying their babies to term after receiving a poor prenatal diagnosis.
BNA also developed a free webinar for pregnancy resource centers to help them better understand the needs of parents who find themselves in this difficult situation.
And BNA has worked with the National Catholic Bioethics Center to highlight the problem of denial of healthcare to parents whose unborn children have been diagnosed with Trisomy 13 or 18 and are not expected to live long past birth.
Currently BNA is supporting 10 families in eight states, including North Carolina.
This year will be an opportunity to develop a long-term fundraising plan and seek improvements to its services, Winsor added.
“We remain blessed to have found this work through our own experiences of loss, and it is our privilege that parents continue to let us share in the lives of their often frail, but very precious babies,” she said. “God is good.”
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter
More online
At www.benotafraid.net: Learn more about the Be Not Afraid ministry