Scott Swanson
For Karen Bostrom and the Sweet Home Pregnancy Care Center, 2017 is shaping up to be a big year – size-wise, anyway.
The center, which was founded in Sweet Home in 1985, purchased the building in which it had been located for decades, at 1344 Main St., last June, which more than doubled its available space.
It’s a blank slate for the center, and offers a big opportunities. Bostrom directs the Pregnancy Center, which is open Monday and Wednesday afternoons, and had 576 client visits last year. It serves both single and married women, she said, from all levels of the economic strata.
“We’re open to everybody and we see all kinds of people,” she said.
In addition to counseling and parenting classes, it provides supplies: car seats (31 last year), strollers (18), cribs of various kinds and toddler beds (23), and portable playpens, in addition to toiletries, wipes, diapers and other baby-care items, and prenatal vitamins.
The center also distributes Flinstone vitamins for children, “which is a new program we were able to start last year,” said Bostrom, who has been involved in the program since 1989. They also maintain racks of donated clothing, provided free to needy recipients.
“We have everything that could benefit a girl for whom this is her first baby to a mom with four kids,” she said.
Clients are required “earn” large giveaway items by taking parenting classes, which are offered on a one-on-one basis by Bostrom and volunteers, often based on the center’s large video collection.
“Since we have to buy those, we want (clients) to get a sense of ownership and responsibility,” Bostrom said. “They feel good that they’ve come to five classes and earned their car seat. It’s not just giving them hand-outs; they’re earning by coming and learning how to increase their parenting skills.”
There’s follow-up, too.
“When they watch a video, we’ll ask them about it. We see them on a regular basis, so we have that relationship with them.”
All this on a budget just under $30,000, funded by grants from Samaritan Health Services and the Sweet Home Foundation, as well as eight to 10 local churches, which donate regularly or on occasion.
“There’s no government agency that’s going to come close for the people we serve and the stuff that we give out,” Bostrom said. “For that budget, they couldn’t.”
She and three volunteers run a tight ship, she said.
“We’re really careful with the money. We don’t look at it as our money. We look at it as the Lord’s money. We don’t waste anything.”
Though the center is a Christian-based organization, it is not directly affiliated with any church or denomination, she noted.
Aubrey Scott, a client, said she’s had experience with another center, but she likes the accessibility of the Sweet Home center.
“Lebanon has more resources, but it’s harder to get to them,” said Scott, 29, who is pregnant with her second child. “When you’re out of stuff and you need it, it’s available. Yuou can learn about an 8-year-old or about babies. You can pick your classes.”
Her sister-in-law, Alejandra Scott, 26, was at the center last week with her 9-month-old fourth child, Gabriela.
“The resources here are awesome,” she said. “Here, they’re working with you and you’re working with them on your schedule.”
So now, after decades of relatively snug but comfortable existence in the back of the building, they now own the whole thing, which brings up new opportunities and challenges, Bostrom said. They got a “good deal” on the brick building built in the 1940s, from the family of their longtime landlord, Ozzie Shaw, who died at the close of 2015.
“Ozzie was a good landlord,” Bostrom said. “He took care of things.”
The new acquisition includes small office spaces that Bostrom said could be used for consultations and classes, which would free up space in the back currently used for those purposes. The center has rooms full of baby equipment, diapers, baby wipes and other supplies that it provides needy clients.
Some work has already been done. Community Chapel members last fall had a work day in which they painted areas that needed it and replaced ceiling panels damaged by previous roof leaks.
Bostrom said she hopes to see other improvements this year.
One would be new flooring.
“This carpet is in bad shape,” she said, gesturing toward the thin brownish gray floor covering that covers most of the floors on which the center has previously operated.
She said the facility needs something more resistant to spills and other accidents involving mothers with young children.
Two of the center’s three volunteers, Maxine Brewer and Karlene Stutzer, are also on the five-member Board of Directors, and Joe Stutzer serves as bookkeeper.
Bostrom said more volunteers are needed for a variety of tasks: sorting and cleaning donated clothing, working with clients (for which training is provided) and “handyman” activities.
“I think we’re going to be able to expand our resources, especially since the resource part is a large part of what we do,” she said. “People will be able to have more things, people will be able to have more access to it, and we’ll be able to benefit the community.”
For more information, contact Bostrom at (541) 367-2447.