Sacramento Life Center offers a comprehensive array of resources and services to Sacramento-area women and teen girls, especially those who are pregnant with nowhere to turn. “It’s critical that our services are free because financial strain is one of the primary reasons so many pregnant women are in crisis,” notes Marie Leatherby, executive director.

Since its inception in 1972, SLC has served 50,000 women and today serves about 2,000 women per year. “Of the women we serve, 95 percent are low-income,” says Leatherby. “They’re struggling to make ends meet, so we connect them with resources such as food, clothing, shelter, medical care and more.”

SLC’s two licensed community clinics, the Sacramento Valley Pregnancy Clinic and their Mobile Medical Clinic, are based in Sacramento’s Arden area, which has become California’s fastest growing low-income area. “Our numbers of women served have gone up 30 percent in the last couple of years,” Leatherby says.

Services offered at no charge under the direction and supervision of a licensed physician include pregnancy tests, STD tests, ultrasounds, patient advocacy and more. 

SLC calculates that each woman served receives about $1,000 worth of medical services and material needs. As this non-profit is 100 percent privately funded, they encourage businesses, foundations and individuals to sponsor any individual woman in their care or to sponsor their baby baskets with critical baby care supplies for those women.

“So many women would like to parent, to be mothers, but it’s financially daunting and, unfortunately, there are many messages in society that they shouldn’t go through with a pregnancy. Women with unplanned pregnancies really need the community’s help and support to see their pregnancies through, and we invite our community to help us help them.”