Crisis Pregnancy Center to note 20th year

Twenty years ago, Hoyt resident Sandy Rickel felt a calling from God to start a ministry to young mothers and mothers-to-be in the Jackson County area “who were in a crisis of some sort” and dealing with unexpected or unwanted pregnancies or a lack of resources to take care of their babies.

“When I announced it at my church, people came up to me and said they agreed it was a need,” Rickel said. “People were just on board with it.”

That ministry — the Crisis Pregnancy Center of Jackson County — is still going strong today, with Rickel as its director. This Sunday, a celebration of 20 years of the center’s service to young mothers in need will be held from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Linscott Park, and the public is invited to join in the celebration.

From the beginning, the center has provided clothes and diapers for children from infancy through two years of age, as well as other baby items that are made available through donations. The center also offers counseling for young mothers-to-be weighing the options of adoption and abortion, with an mission to get them to choose the former option for the sake of children yet to be born.

“That’s who we’re about,” she said. “We believe children should have a chance in the world, just like the rest of us.”

The Crisis Pregnancy Center first opened its doors in Hoyt in March of 1995, after Rickel and another volunteer completed training at the Light House, a similar organization in Kansas City. After five years in Hoyt, Rickel said she and the center’s volunteeers “felt like we needed a little more exposure,” moving to the center’s current home at 109 E. Fifth St. in Holton in 2000.

The center, a “non-profit, non-denominational, non-political ministry,” is funded by church groups in the area, and donations of baby items and money have helped to keep the center going strong over the past two decades, Rickel said. Volunteers make baby blankets for the center to distribute, she added, while others make donations of baby items collected during “baby showers,” such as diapers and clothing.

“Whatever people donated to us, whether it’s a bed, a high chair, clothing — baby items of any kind — we’ve always been very well supplied,” she said. “And those items are all free to those who need them. People can come in and pick out what they need, although we do have to limit them sometimes.”

The center also urges pregnant women to consider adoption as a viable alternative to abortion, and Rickel said that during the center’s existence, volunteers have provided information that has convinced those considering abortion to choose against it.

“Whether we’ve changed the minds of two or three or four, it’s been worth it,” she said. “We’re not really counselors, but we are there to listen to them.”

Sunday’s celebration will include a “blessing of the children” by local church pastors, along with refreshments and information about the center, Rickel said.

The Crisis Pregnancy Center is open on the second and fourth weeks of each month, from 9 a.m. to noon on Wednesdays, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursdays and from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.

The Crisis Pregnancy Center of Jackson County is located at 109 E. Fifth St. in Holton and is open from 9 a.m. to noon on Wednesdays and Saturdays and from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursdays, all on the second and fourth weeks of the month. For more information, contact the center at 364-5400 or email CPC@holtonks.net, or visit www.cpcholtonks.org