MOSAIC/THRIVE
ST. LOUIS Pregnancy Centers
Cash Cows of Metro-St. Louis: Certain
pro-life organizations would rather perpetuate abortion than prevent
abortion
January
2012
Why do pregnancy centers that collect OVER $1 million per year
and pay their directors $80,000 per year exist? Because
they are “window dressers”. They
have lost their focus and have fallen in love with making money. They
have turned into financial businesses. Unfortunately,
this is exactly what Thrive St. Louis and
Mosaic
Pregnancy
Center
do. They are supposed to be
helping women and their unborn children. At
both of these centers, pregnant women have to be a so-called
“client” of theirs, take classes, and register before they give
birth to their baby to receive any help. If
a desperate mom in need of baby supplies and immediate assistance visits
one of these centers for help after she has given birth to her baby she
cannot get any help, unfortunately, because that is their standard
policy.
Mosaic
Pregnancy
Center
just last year collected approximately $760,000 in donations and grants,
and approximately $550,000 was paid out in salaries and employee
benefits alone, http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments//2010/371/218/2010-371218460-072720ba-9.pdf.
Only a few thousand dollars actually went towards helping moms and
babies in need. What a
disgrace and shame! They
have turned their operation of a pregnancy center into a money grubbing
business. At least they have
quit advertising in the Catholic Times newspaper asking for more money
under the guise of a Catholic organization. A
couple of years ago, they presented an advertisement in the newspaper
saying, “As Catholics,
we,” trying to pass themselves off as a Catholic organization in order
to collect more money.
Almost two years ago,
March 9, 2010, at Illinois legislator day, Mosaic Pregnancy
Center director Kathy Sparks was passing herself off to legislators in
Springfield, IL claiming that she was the ministry performing
ultrasounds outside the Hope Clinic in Granite City. We
caught her red-handed as we were only feet behind her in the reception
line greeting the legislators. Maybe
that is why she took off and out the doors when she saw us in line. You
can only imagine how embarrassing it was as we introduced ourselves to
the lawmakers and had to correct them. Performing
free ultrasounds outside the Hope abortion Clinic has been a part of
Small Victories’ daily ministering as we have for the past twenty
years.
The reason our ministry started was because
Sparks
’ center was referring women for abortions and was not helping
desperate women in need. Referring
girls to the abortion clinic was brought to our attention by a pregnancy
center in
Collinsville
,
Illinois
. They, too, were
encountering business cards from New Beginnings/Mosaic that referred
girls to the abortion clinic. Marilyn
Welling was one of the several volunteers who brought this to our
attention.
Another instance of deception is the Shawn Reagan fiasco. On
March 17, 2005 our ministry was alone standing outside Hope abortion
Clinic. Once again, another
underage girl was brought for an abortion. Her
frantic parents showed up outside the mill pleading, trying to get
inside after their daughter’s school notified them that she was not in
school. They discovered that
she had been brought for an abortion that they had no knowledge of and
did not want to happen. The
girl’s mother, Shawn Reagan, cried out, “That’s
my grandchild! I should be in there with my daughter.” Shawn
was arrested and placed inside a police cruiser. For
several hours we called law enforcement officials and the State’s
Attorney to no avail. We
contacted the local media, and they covered this tragic situation fairly
well. This mother had no access to her daughter or grandchild. Only
hours later was this 14 year old girl thrown out to her mother who sat
in a squad car most of the time.
The family had many problems after this episode. It
was all over the media. Kathy
Sparks took full advantage of this tragic situation by imploring Shawn
Reagan to do three fundraising banquets for New Beginnings/Mosaic. This
was relayed to us by Shawn Reagan herself after Kathy Sparks paraded her
around from fundraiser to fundraiser like a trophy. I
asked Shawn, “Did you get paid for this?” She answered, “No.” “How did Kathy Sparks
help you?” Shawn replied, “All
Kathy Sparks did was give my daughter a pregnancy test in the beginning,
and then she just paraded me around to do fundraising banquets for
her.” I questioned, “Well, how did this help you?”
Shawn responded, “It didn’t. You’re the one who helped me and my daughter outside
that abortion clinic.”
This displays the character of Kathy Sparks. She
is there to LOOK like she is doing pro-life work while she hijacks the
work of others who are. We
crashed her little “glory party” when we showed up at the Missouri
state capital where legislators and media were listening to testimonials
concerning underage girls being brought over state lines to Illinois to
have
secret
abortions. Kathy Sparks,
along with Representative Jane Cunningham and former
Pregnancy
Resource
Center
director and
Sparks
’ mentor John McCastle sat with Ms. Reagan. Surprise,
we were seated with the pro-aborts. When legislators asked for any
further testimony from witnesses we held our hands up and were asked to
present it. We gave them
heaven and told the truth about who and what organization is standing
outside this abortion facility in Granite City, Illinois holding these
distraught mothers of underage girls coming across state lines. And it
is not Kathy Sparks.
We gave the lawmakers facts and statistics on this occurrence and
the rise of abortion clients coming from
Missouri
. We shared several tragic situations and also informed them that we are
the only pregnancy resource outside this abortion mill that is open
everyday as an alternative to abortion-bound women. We
also stated that we do not discriminate. We
help everyone in all stages of pregnancy and at all hours. Girls
do not have to jump through hoops in order to receive assistance.
Why would Kathy Sparks choose to selectively help pregnant girls?
She goes so far as to state
on her brochure that girls must come to her pregnancy center at the
onset of their pregnancy and must take classes in order to then receive
help. In addition,
Sparks
limits ultrasounds to women who are only in their first trimester. This
is exactly why abortion-bound women are not walking into pregnancy
centers like Mosaic and Thrive seeking help. Rather, they are dashing to
abortion mills that are more than willing to provide an immediate
“solution.” And that is why our ministry is so vital.
Thrive
St. Louis
collected $1.7 million last year and less than 10% went to actually help
moms and their unborn babies http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments//2010/431/304/2010-431304395-070129d1-9.pdf.
Over half of the amount they
collected went towards salaries and employee benefits, with very little
going towards helping women in need. Thrive
St. Louis
is still in denial over hiring a pro-choice Miss
Missouri
to speak at their major fundraising banquet in 2004.
Ministries
such as the two above should not be masquerading themselves around as
doers of God’s work when they are actually living off of the abortion
holocaust ravaging our nation. Innocent
babies are dying, and they are worried about how much money they can
make. They have lost their
focus. Instead of preventing abortion they are propping it up. If
abortion came to an end tomorrow they would be jumping off their
buildings. Why aren’t
newspapers like the St. Louis Post Dispatch or the disgraceful St. Louis
MetroVoice run by Jim Day reporting these facts? WHERE
IS THEIR ACCOUNTABILITY?
Jim Judge of the Better Business Bureau of St. Louis recently
reported that with any non-profit organization, over 65% of the money
collected should go directly towards their stated purpose, not to
salaries. It is very clear
that both of these organizations do not come anywhere close to meeting
this guideline. Both of the
directors of these organizations and anyone else in the organization
that receives a paycheck should be exposed as frauds.
Our Small Victories ministry collected $101,000 in donations last
year and almost 75% of the money collected went towards helping moms and
their babies, both directly and indirectly, as well as helping others in
need.
So, the next time you think of donating to
Mosaic
Pregnancy
Center
in
Granite City
or Thrive St. Louis, think of two wolves in sheep’s clothing, or just
better yet, throw your money out in the street and watch it blow down
the road. Elaborate closed
buildings do not help desperate women in need or save babies scheduled
to die. When a pregnancy center discriminates and makes it hard enough
for pregnant women to receive the bare essentials, it is just pushing
them into the abortion clinic that is open and willing to help mothers
terminate their pregnancies. Both
of these centers stand behind their faith and feel justified with their
rules and regulations, but Jesus would never stay in a building and pay
himself an exorbitant salary. He
went out into the streets seeking the lost and needy. Babies
are not dying at pregnancy centers; they are dying at abortion mills.
Proverbs
14:31 “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but
whoever is kind to the needy honors God.”
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