Bucharest, July 7, 2020
Photo: basilica.ro The campaign to fund a new support center for pregnant women managed to raise more than 90% of its goal to set up and operate the center in just two months.
Thus, $21,070 of the needed $23,280 have been raised, reports the Basilica News Agency. This is the largest amount ever publicly raised from private individuals for a pregnancy crisis support center, and the campaign will continue until it reaches its final goal.
A donor also offered the center an icon of the Mother of God “Protectress of the Unborn.”
Campaign coordinator Alexandra Nadane reflected: “What unites these people? I received the answer to this question today when someone donated this special icon of the Mother of God ‘Protectress of the Unborn’ to the St. Helen Center: the desire to be the outstretched hands of God’s love for women in crisis pregnancies and for their children.”
The gifted icon was painted by an Orthodox Christian in the U.S. who felt that the Mother of God helps them in the fight for the defense of the gift of life and for the good of women. It emphasizes that the Theotokos is a spiritual mother for all people, born and unborn.
The center is named in honor of St. Helen, “who gave birth to and raised a man who changed the face of the world, the holy Emperor Constantine.”
The St. Helen Center will provide short-term support before birth and in the first months after birth. It should be able to provide psychological and material help to about 1,500 women every year.
It is planned to inaugurate the new center on August 16.
