BETHANY HOUSE
Bethany House, A non-profit home for expectant young women
Bethany House exists to provide “shelter” homes and services for single, expectant women and their future babies. We provide a loving home environment that offers hope, encouragement, and confidence to face the future. Preparation for a healthy birth and responsible motherhood includes well-baby care, parenting classes, life skills, counseling, adoption counseling, education and employment opportunities, and communication skills. Bethany House seeks not only to provide basic needs but also to prepare women for productive futures. Our program’s foundation is based on Christian principles and the love of God. We believe His truth, grace, and power can change lives for the better in this present age, and for eternity. Our “motto” is that Bethany House helps by “Touching Two Lives at a Time…and Generations Beyond, with the love of God.”
Bethany House offers hope, encouragement, and confidence to face the future
Bethany House addresses a number of critical issues in our society. One primary purpose of our program is to provide shelter, food, medical care, and clothing to young, homeless, pregnant women. Sadly, the US continues to lead the way with the highest pregnancy rates in the industrialized world with 35% of girls getting pregnant once by age twenty. Many of these women are ostracized by their families and left with no home during this critical time. We provide a safe, stable, and supportive environment for these seemingly hopeless women during their pregnancies and up to three months following birth.
Secondly, children of teen mothers face an array of difficulties: more likely to perform poorly in academics, sons of teenage moms more likely to end up in prison, over 75% will be on welfare within five years of their births. Bethany House helps prevent problems from escalating or developing, by interrupting the cycles of abuse, addiction, and poverty that a majority of these women are burdened by. This reprieve allows their unborn child to experience a safer pregnancy.
Children of younger mothers face higher rates of abuse and neglect. We help better prepare this mom-to-be by providing intensive counseling services, support groups, well-baby instruction, and much more. In addition, poverty, due to lack of education, faces many of these ladies who have dropped out of school. Bethany House guides women toward educational opportunities (90% receive their GEDs) and provides employment counseling and preparation.