We recently released Answers for Life’s new website http://afltucson.com/ and I would like to share a story that coincides with my experience with working with Kathy Arizmendi and her team.
Answers for Life is a pregnancy center located in the middle of Tucson Arizona. It is located 1.9 miles away from Tucson’s main abortion clinics, Planned Parenthood – the Margaret Sanger Health Center and Tucson Women’s Center (which is in the same business park and also owned Planned Parenthood).
For over 30 years, the streets and sidewalks around Planned Parenthood and Tucson Women’s Center were treated as private property and it wasn’t until November of 2015 that a land survey was completed (as a result of a 2 year long lawsuit) that confirmed the suspicion that these roads and sidewalks are really public sidewalks and public roads with public easements. The security guards and police have shooed life minded advocates away from these sidewalks for decades. And now life minded individuals are allowed to walk on this public property without fear of being arrested.
When I heard this story, I knew that something had to be done. So with these public sidewalks opening up, I started to sidewalk counsel along with a few other people. We made up gift bags with information about the local pregnancy centers inside the gift bags. We eventually added little baby socks which we attached to the outside of the gift bag and then included a hand written note – inviting someone to visit our friends at Answers for Life – which is also the closest pregnancy center to these abortion clinics. We also promoted the other pregnancy centers in the area such as Hands of Hope, Fatima Women’s Center and Reachout in many of these same bags. We handed out ice cold Pepsis along with the bags filled with goodies beyond the lifesaving fliers, such as nail polish, tissue paper, candy, hand lotion, and TicTacs. The first 3 weeks we didn’t hand out any but on week 4 we handed out 3 bags out of only 4 attempts in 30 minutes. I could talk for a while about the learning curve and progression to week 4 – so ask if you would like to know what I learned on the way to week 4. I could also tell you stories about the interactions that we had with these young women and couples and men. Then on week 5 we handed out 11 out of 15 attempts over about 3 hours.
Counting only these first 14 bags handed out, we had our first confirmed success story. We heard from Answers for Life that a young woman called their center from the Planned Parenthood waiting room and proceeded to drive to Answers for Life to receive a free pregnancy test. Do you know what a pregnancy test costs? The local Planned Parenthood charges $16 for a pregnancy test. This young woman saved $16 by driving 1.9 miles and she saved a great deal more than $16 – a great deal more!
It was wonderful to work with Answers for Life on their website and to talk about their audience and the website’s messaging along with the desired call to action. And I am so blessed to partner with them as a fellow life minded person in our community looking to do something to stop the ignorance that supports abortion by doing something that reflects the Fruit of the Spirit – looking for an opportunity to help one person at a time – when they need help – in a way that they would accept and enjoy.
It has been exciting to see:
- Love working
- faith in action
- kindness and goodness open doors
- joy being shared in difficult places
- longsuffering being used to keep going
- Peace and Temperance helping us pray
I asked Kathy and her team about their experience with us and here is what they said:
“Working with the iRapture team has been an amazing experience. They were able to take our ideas and ministry goals to create a professional, appealing site to draw in our clients. Partnering with iRapture has been one of the best decisions our young ministry has made.” – Kathy Arizmendi, Center Director
“I was truly impressed with our new website. We had a great experience with the staff at iRapture and are blessed with their creativity and knowledge of designing our site. Many thanks for your support and heart for our ministry! Excellent job!” – Kathy Shechter, Development Director
Please join iRapture.com in prayer for Answers for Life and their team – to be encouraged and strengthened. During a tour of their facility, Kathy exemplified faith and vision. Part of their path is to expand and they need additional finances to do this. Please pray for Answers for Life to reach more people who share the vision of life. Please pray that they will continue to be a joyful, good, kind, peaceful place demonstrating faith in action.
Sincerely,
Jacob Barr
iRapture.com
877-488-7999
[email protected]
P.S. We are ready to take on new website projects.
Author
Jacob Barr is the owner and CEO of iRapture.com.
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