Danielle Stokes said her life has been connected to unplanned pregnancy since the very beginning.
“My mom was a teen mom; that’s always been part of my story,” she said. “People will say I should’ve been aborted.”
But her mom decided to carry her to term and give birth. And as Stokes got older, she found that God continued to weave threads of redemption through her story.
“I did missions work in Costa Rica, and my host family had the only pregnancy resource center in Costa Rica at that time,” she said. “The Lord was directing my steps even though I didn’t know it.”
God’s pathway
Back in Florence, Stokes began volunteering at Shoals Sav-A-Life, which had been helping women with pregnancy tests and parenting resources since 1994. Then a little while later in 2016, she came on staff there as client services coordinator while she worked on her master’s degree in family studies.
And in November 2022, she became the clinic’s director.
“We’re in Florence where the University of North Alabama is, so we see a lot of college-age girls,” Stokes said.
Helpful resources
The clinic sees about 25 appointments a week, and over the years as Stokes has counseled women, she’s been able to share her own story.
She also has been able to provide them with a lot of helpful resources, including the parenting classes offered at the clinic.
“With our pregnancy tests, we see a lot of lower-income girls,” Stokes said. “The girls come in and look very defeated, so we want to show them hope, and we want to connect them with resources.”
At the end of each parenting class, the staff and volunteers of the clinic “bring in Scripture and show them how the Lord walks with us in every situation,” she said.
Stokes said the stories abound of women and babies they’ve been able to help, like one mother who came through and attended all the parenting classes. Her son is now several years old, Stokes said, and the young mother is pregnant again.
“She was planning to place that baby for adoption, so we were able to connect her with some resources for that,” Stokes said.
She said another woman who came through their doors shared the story of seeing a “Choose Life” car tag with the same last name as hers, and she felt like it was God’s way of telling her to choose life for her baby.
“She ended up coming through our entire program,” Stokes said.
She said she’s grateful for the local church partners who come alongside them with volunteer help and help with other resources, such as hosting baby showers for the mothers.
Meeting needs
“When we give those items out, we’re able to let them know people cared enough about them to donate them,” Stokes said. “That speaks hope into our girls as well.”
Eddy Garner, associational missions strategist for Colbert-Lauderdale Baptist Association, said the churches in the association appreciate and support the ministry of Shoals Sav-A-Life. Currently, churches are doing a fundraiser where church members take home empty baby bottles, fill them up with money and bring them back.
“Some even put it in their budget each year,” he said.
Garner said everyone who gives and volunteers “sees the importance of that ministry to meet the needs of women in our area.”
“It’s a great ministry,” he said.
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