Published: February 08, 2006 02:56 pm      

Crisis pregnancy center being formed

Organizers see need for services here

While a group of concerned, active local citizens is working to make the Butts County Crisis Pregnancy Center a reality – the board is formed, and work is underway on an actual office – the group is working to help pregnant teens and do something about Butts County’s teen pregnancy rate.

Kelly Wood, worked on the steering committee to form the center, and currently serves as secretary to its board of directors.

Wood has lived in Jackson for eight years, and realized there is a need for a pregnancy center in this community. “We have a 20 percent higher teen pregnancy rate than the State of Georgia’s average, and Georgia’s average is pretty high already,” she said last week. “So we have a serious problem with teen pregnancy here, and I saw a need to help.”

As she explained, some young women have families who take care of them when they become pregnant. Other do not. “Some girls get kicked out of their houses when their parents find out they are pregnant,” Wood explained. “These girls are in need of shelter, nutrition and other help.” The Crisis Pregnancy Center will be there to help these girls.

But a big part of the center’s program, said Wood, is abstinence education. “We can treat the problem, but be really need to get to the roots of the problem,” said Wood.

That is why she and the center’s board are encouraging parents and their children to tune in to “The Real Majority.” On January 28 at 1:30 p.m., this program will air on WSB television out of Atlanta. “This program is part of the Georgia Statewide Abstinence Campaign and the Children & Youth Coordinating Council,” said Wood. “It was produced by Connecting with Kids, a company that also does programs on teen health and safety.”

Wood recently saw clips from ‘The Real Majority,” and is excited about its potential impact.

“A lot of kids think everyone is sexually active, but actually only 10 percent of teens age 10 to 13 are, and for those ages 14 to 17, 54 percent are not sexually active,” said Wood. “So we want the kids to understand that others will put on how cool they are and talk about sex, but in reality they are not sexually active. In fact, the percentage of sexually active teens is on the decline.

“Kids need to steer their own lives, and understand that there’s nothing cool about falling in the traps that sexual activity can spring, like diseases and pregnancy. What’s more attractive than for a teen to say ‘I have a plan for my life, these are my goals.’ And have self respect.”

Wood and the Crisis Pregnancy Center are encouraging parents to watch “The Real Majority” with their kids, and discuss it afterward.

Anyone interested in learning more about the Butts County Crisis Pregnancy Center can call Kelly Wood at 770-845-8772 or Joy Tarleton at 770-504-1392.