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Pflugerville Pregnancy Resource Center

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Written by Amy Stansbury Friday, 07 November 2008

The nonprofit organization offers counseling and support for pregnant women in need.

Ellison Marshall is a certified sonographer and the chairman of the board of directors for the Pflugerville Pregnancy Resource Center, which opened in April, appropriately nine months after a July 2007 fundraiser that generated $35,000 for the new organization.

With initial funding secured, the board hired Dena Ransom as the director of the center. She began working in July, though her official start date was not until September 2007. She spent her first few months working on paperwork to secure 501(c)(3) status for the organization, recognizing the group as a nonprofit. She also needed to find a location for the center.

“For a pregnancy center, you need to be where people can find you, and you need to be close to the schools,” Ransom said. “Every place we found was so small, commercial or too expensive.”

Director Dena Ransom, volunteer Denise Marshall and her husband, Ellison Marshall, the chairman of the board of directors

Ransom found an empty house on N. Third Street in Pflugerville that Oscar Rodriguez owned, but it was not for sale or lease. However, Rodriguez supported the mission of the organization — to love in a Christ-like way any woman who is in need of physical, emotional and spiritual help as she faces an unplanned pregnancy — and he decided to allow the organization to use the building for free.

More than 1,000 people visited the Pflugerville PRC website during the first month, and it has gotten another 13,000 hits in the past seven months. The center has also partnered with the local schools and worked with 12 school counselors and more than 30 students since opening.

The PRC provides support, assistance and information on the options available to anyone who is pregnant or thinks she might be pregnant. Though some options these women may consider include keeping the baby and raising it herself or with the help of the father, family and friends, placing the baby with adoptive parents, or terminating the pregnancy, the center only supports decisions that preserve the life of the baby.

“We are unashamedly, unquestionably pro-life, but unfortunately these are all choices that kids have,” Ransom said. “It’s not on our website to promote it, but if I didn’t put it on my website, it doesn’t make it not exist. We tell them about the risks associated with the [‘morning after’] RU-486 pill and with abortions.”

Ransom said she receives calls from girls of all ages at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes they tell her they are not ready to live with their “mistake” for the rest of their lives.

“Sometimes they have mistakenly been told that it’s not a baby inside them [yet], but it is,” Ransom said. “I tell them, ‘It is a baby,’ and we do a sonogram so I can show the mother the baby’s heartbeat. I also tell them, ‘Make no mistake. Whatever you decide today, you will live with for the rest of your life. The choice is whether you live with life or with death.’”

Ransom said she wants to build relationships and affect people's lives.

“People say you can’t change a life in 45 minutes, but you know what? You can," Ransom said. "If someone walks in and they’re helpless, and you say, ‘You can do this, and I’m going to walk beside you.’ If after that they walk in any sort of different direction, then that life is changed.”

In need of support

The Pflugerville Pregnancy Resource Center offers counseling for pregnant women in need of support. The organization also offers nationally known Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University courses, use of a free computer lab and a boutique with maternity clothing and baby items. New or gently used donations are needed, including: