Bella Vita has moved with a few more services to help mothers and fathers in need as they transition into parenthood.
Continue readingBella Vita to Hold Open House at New Location
$500 Grant Awarded to Bella Vita
![[front]: Sarah Dedloff, Lorie Reading, Sarah Origer & Rachel Lenig [back]: Jay Albert](http://www.wkvi.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Bella-Vita.jpg)
[back]: Jay Albert
Starke United Awards $20,000 in Grants
Several Starke County charities are benefiting from grant money from the Starke United Fund. These type of grants are made possible through a partnership with Starke United and the Starke County Community Foundation. There was $20,000 available that was split up among the various local organizations. Continue reading
Bella Vita to Host Fundraising Banquet
Bella Vita will be celebrating five years of helping women in Starke County this month.
The Bella Vita Pregnancy Resource Center in Knox provides free pregnancy tests, options counseling, peer advocate-assisted mentorship, and various educational programs in an effort to support those facing a crisis pregnancy situation.
Bella Vita to Hold Open House This Weekend
“We’ll have food available in the front room. All of our board of directors will be there, our volunteers will be there, so people from the community are invited just in general to come and see the new building and what we’ve done so far with it and things that need to be done in the future as well for maintenance and things like that,” she said.
Bella Vita Takes Up Occupancy in Former Starke United Building
Bella Vita moved into its new location about two weeks ago, taking up the old Starke United building that they purchased for $1 from the Starke United Board. Lange said their previous building on Heaton Street in Knox was owned by the Lutheran Church and they wanted to find a location they could own that would better suit their needs, though the old building suited them well for more than two years.
Bella Vita Acquires Starke United Building
Starke County’s crisis pregnancy center will soon have a new home. Starke United officials turned over the keys to their building on Lake Street to Bella Vita Crisis Pregnancy Center this morning. Secretary Rhonda Adcock says the former downtown post office location meets a lot of the organization’s logistical goals. These include having two entrances so new clients who come for pregnancy tests can do so through a different door than established ones who are there for counseling or to earn baby bucks. The building is also handicap accessible and offers plenty of space for counseling, classrooms, meetings and staff offices. Adcock says the building also provides a convenient location with ample parking nearby. The center isn’t quite ready to relocate just yet, as some interior renovations need to be done to make it user friendly. Those can happen soon, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous local donor. Starke United no longer needs the building due to their administrative merger with the community foundation. They’ve transferred ownership to Bella Vita.
Bella Vita Pledge Walk Gathers $6,300
The recent Bella Vita pledge walk at Wythogan Park in Knox helped raise $6,385 for the new pregnancy resource center located on Heaton Street.
Rhonda Adcock, President of the organization talked to us about the day.
“We had a really good cross section of our community there,” said Adcock. “We were able to get 88 walkers and we had about 120 people in attendance with all of our helpers and our board members and everyone that was there. We had a great financial turnout and we were able to have the Mayor come and be our Marshall for the walk.”
Bella Vita Offers Classes to Area Women
Tona Miller, one of the councilors at the Bella Vita Pregnancy Resource Center has said that to date, over 35 women have entered classes at the facility.
“I think that they are very interested in our classes,” said Miller. ” We have a program called the ‘Earn While you Learn’ program and what this program does is every class that you come to, prenatal or parenting, you earn what we call baby bucks. With these baby bucks, you can purchase items out of our store. We have clothing, diapers, cribs, walkers, strollers, anything baby related. You also earn the baby bucks for going to your doctor’s visit or WIC appointments. I think most of the girls are very interested in this program because it helps them in a financial way.”
Bella Vita Fundraising Event Tonight at Knox Community Center
The Bella Vita Pregnancy Resource Center’s First Annual Fundraising reception will be held tonight at 6:30 p.m. CT at the Knox Community Center. A ribbon cutting for the center was held last week, and Executive Director Suzanne Lange said tonight’s affair will be to raise funding for the operating expenses.
Bella Vita Ribbon Cutting Ceremony Scheduled for Thursday
A ribbon cutting ceremony will be held on Thursday, May 12th, at 9:00 a.m. CT at Bella Vita Pregnancy Resource Center in Knox. An open house will follow until about Noon. Bella Vita is at 206 S. Heaton St. in Knox.
All services at Bella Vita are free and confidential. Services include: pregnancy tests, peer counseling by trained advocates about pregnancy options, referrals to community resources, and education classes that empower women to make healthy choices as well as earn needed material items. Call (574) 772-2877 for more information.
Susanne Lange Discusses More Services of Bella Vita
Yesterday we told you about a pregnancy resource center that will be opening soon in a home that was originally owned by Francis Myers in the 200 block of Heaton Street in Knox. The center is scheduled to be opening on March 15. It will be called Bella Vita and is a pro-life center that is opening primarily to help women carry their babies to term.
Susanne Lange, a registered nurse, will be the administrator of the new center.
Susanne was asked what advise she would give a woman in her 40’s who has become unexpectantly pregnant and doesn’t feel she wants to carry the baby to term.
Pregnancy Resource Center to Open in Knox on March 15th
A pregnancy resource center will be opening in a few weeks. Susanne Lange, a registered nurse, will be the administrator of the crisis center that has been named Bella Vita, which means beautiful life. If you’re an expectant mother, a site like adatewithbaby.com – a 3D ultrasound provider in Toronto, offers baby gender reveal services for all expecting mothers.
“What we’re going to have what we call crisis counseling,” Lange explained. “When a woman or girl comes in and she’s trying to make a decision, we’ll have trained counselors that she can sit with and talk about her options and make a decision. Our ultimate goal is to save the life of the unborn child”
Bella Vita Representatives Give Presentation to Knox Community School Board
The Knox Community School Board heard a presentation about the new Bella Vita pregnancy resource center that will be opening on U.S. 35 in Knox in March.
“David Bullock, one of our former teachers who retired a few years back, has been involved with the non-profit organization called Bella Vita,” explained Superintendent A.J. Gappa. “Mr. Bullock and Susanne Lange, also of Bella Vita, were at the Board meeting just to give an informational presentation to the Board and would like to establish a positive relationship between the schools in Starke County and Bella Vita.”
