Compassion Pregnancy Services is enlisting the help of friends
and supporters for their annual Walk for Life, one of the
organization’s two major fundraisers of the year.
Hollister – Compassion Pregnancy Services is enlisting the help of friends and supporters for their annual Walk for Life, one of the organization’s two major fundraisers of the year.
The annual walk-a-thon, held every October at Dunne Park, is as old as Compassion Pregnancy itself. Founded in 1985, Compassion Pregnancy offers counseling services to young women.
As a non-profit, Compassion Pregnancy relies on monetary and in-kind donations from local businesses, churches, charitable organizations and private individuals looking to help. Participants in the Walk for Life solicit sponsors from the community for each lap they walk, with the money going towards general operations for Compassion Pregnancy.
“We received our medical license in July,” said Angie Roland, Executive Director of Compassion Pregnancy. “So of course, our expenses have gone up. These fundraisers mean more than ever.”
Initially the event was propelled by only a dozen or so people; today up to 300 people come to support the non-profit, raising $37,000 last year alone.
“It’s wonderful to see people from all over the county coming together,” said Roland. “Usually a dozen churches participate, loads of high school kids, businesses. The point is for people to work together under a common goal.”
One such team is that under the leadership of Mackenzie Donovan, a freshman at San Benito High School who took it upon herself, along with a friend, to organize over 20 junior high and high school students from a church youth group into a team and raised $2,000.
“My family has been doing this for five or six years,” she said. “But I decided in August that I wanted to form my own team this year. My two siblings and I were adopted, so this is a cause very dear to me.”
It was not only her own situation, but that of a friend faced with an unplanned pregnancy who gave the child up for adoption, that prompted Mackenzie to take action this year.
“I feel that this is a really important cause, I think they do great work in the community,” she said. “If we can save even one baby, I think that’s amazing.”
Mackenzie and her friends are not by any means the youngest participants in the Walk for Life, however. That title might go to Christina and Jessica Bless, ages six and four, respectively.
“I was a walker when I first was involved,” said Dena Bless, the girls’ mother. “Later on I started help organize teams. At that point my oldest was four at the time, and she wanted to walk. We live in the country, so I figured she could make it, with lots of breaks.”
That first year, Christina managed to raise $1,300, with minimal help from Mom. This now that her younger sister, Jessica, is old enough, the two are working as a team, asking for pledges in front of Safeway and writing letters to friends and family. The two have almost raised $3,000.
“My family has always been into helping other people,” said Bless, whose husband is currently going to Indonesia to help with the tsunami relief effort. “And I think it’s great that you can find so many people in the community willing to help as well. People from different churches, and people who don’t go to church at all, everyone just really cares about these women in our community.”
