Harvest for a Home event will benefit New Eve Ministries

Winchester — The decision to have a child in the face of hardship and adversity is not always an easy one.

New Eve Ministries is dedicated to helping ease the way for homeless pregnant women 18 and older, who have made the choice to have their babies, by providing them a transitional home to get back on their feet, organizers say.

The local Catholic and pro-life organization wants the women to celebrate “the dignity of their motherhood,” said Joanne Seale of Frederick County, who serves on New Eve’s board as its secretary with her husband, Robert, who is the president.

“They may have made some bad choices in the past, but they made a good choice in keeping their baby, and they can continue to make good choices,” Joanne said. “We want to help them do that.”

But to continue to provide the service, the ministry needs a little help itself in the form of a gala fundraiser to raise money toward its $36,000 annual budget, Robert said.

The group will hold its second annual Harvest for a Home fundraiser at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Winchester Country Club, 1300 Senseny Road, Winchester. Tickets are $100 per person or $175 per couple.

The evening will feature a three-course meal, music, a live auction, and speaker Olivia Gans Turner, the president of the Virginia Society for Human Life. The evening is going to be a fun evening, Robert said, but everything will point back to the need for why this ministry is important.

“These are women who have made the choice to keep their babies, and they need to have a place to go in order to do that,” he said.

The music will be provided by the Mark Brandt Trio, who will play during a cocktail hour and some of dinner, he said. All food and beverages are included.

The live auction will be slightly unconventional in that the items guests bid on are things that directly benefit the home, he said. Rather than bid on items that they take home, they bid on a month’s rent or a crib filled with baby items.

“Everything is going to be pretty much for the house,” Robert said.

Chris Ullman of Washington D.C., a four-time national and international whistling champion, will emcee the event.

One of the highlights of the evening will be Turner, who is on the “forefront of supporting human life from conception to natural death,” Joanne said. Tuner directs Victims of Abortion, an outreach project of the National Right to Life Committee.

Turner also helped organize one of the nation’s first pro-life peer-to-peer post-abortion support groups in the New York City area in 1983, Joanne said. The group was formed after Turner suffered for almost two years with her own decision while a college student to have a suction aspiration abortion 12 weeks into her pregnancy.

“She has her own story, so she can speak from personal experience,” Joanne said.

The women who are helped by New Eve have already made the decision to go through with their pregnancy, Joanne said. The women can apply to the organization and go through an interview process. If a 30-day trial period goes well, they can stay up to a year after they have their babies.

Since the house officially opened in August 2011, it has provided homes to six women; two are current residents, she said. It can hold a maximum of three women with their children at a time.

New Eve grew out of the former Chalet Magnificat, which operated in Front Royal. The location of the home in Frederick County is kept secret because women living there are sometimes in crisis and may have left dangerous and abusive situations, Robert said.

The ministry provides the women with assistance through life skill programs on spirituality, cooking, computer skills, cleaning and baby care, Joanne said. It also assesses the women’s educational backgrounds and will help mothers to either complete their GED or take college classes.

“The goal is to become self-sufficient,” she said.

Information

New Eve Ministries’ Harvest for a Home fundraiser will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Winchester Country Club, 1300 Senseny Road, Winchester. Tickets are $100 per person or $175 per couple. To reserve tickets, contact 540-667-3332.

neweveministries.com

— Contact Laura McFarland at lmcfarland@winchesterstar.com