Rachel Center expands its scope in the community

By CHRIS COLLINS
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Alberta Darlington has been praying for help to transform the Rachel Pregnancy Center into something different for years.

The 74-year-old Darlington has served as the Center’s executive director for the past nine years.

During that time, she and a host of volunteers have worked to supply diapers, formula and clothing to the babies, young parents and pregnant women who enter the nonprofit agency’s doors and to provide guidance and comfort when possible. But Darlington has longed to reach out to them in a different way.

She credits Dorothy Fry with giving her the prod she’d been needing to take that next step.

Fry moved to Baker City two years ago when her husband, Al, was assigned to the First Presbyterian Church as the congregation’s interim pastor.

Dorothy remembers first meeting Darlington in January of this year. The Rachel Center director made a presentation at the First Presbyterian Church asking the congregation to pray for the Center and its mission to help families.

After that, Fry and Darlington started praying together twice weekly.

“Different things were revealed in the importance of supporting young mothers and fathers with a baby on the way,” Fry said.

Through prayer, the women saw the need for the Center to focus more on creating a space for volunteers to interact with clients and to develop supportive relationships with them.

Fry, 60, is a trained social worker who has specialized in addiction and domestic violence counseling. She used her skills during the past two years to volunteer at the Rachel Center, the Northeast Oregon Compassion Center and at the Powder River Correctional Facility. The Frys will be leaving the community to return to their home at Carson City, Nev., in December.

“My first priority is to be my husband’s helpmate and to have a happy home for him,” Fry said, but she was eager to use her training to help others when possible during their time in Baker City.

“Alberta has gotten me to appreciate the importance of the issue of mothers and fathers with new babies coming into this world,” Fry said. “And she’s strengthened my commitment to help in that area wherever I am.”

The women agreed that before the Center could change its focus, it first must change the space that houses its offices and meeting rooms.

That’s where Steve and Lynn Farstad and Wayne and Theresa Bourrie come in. The two couples volunteered their contracting experience to “adopt” rooms at the center at 2192 Court Ave. They’ve rolled up their sleeves and are working to spruce up the rooms to make them more inviting.

Lynn Farstad challenges other businesses and individuals in the community to join them.

The Farstads busied themselves Tuesday working on the children’s room at the former dental office building, which has housed the Rachel Center for the past four years.

“It’s a perfect time of year to help with a community project,” Lynn Farstad said in promoting her challenge to get other businesses, churches or community groups to adopt a room at the Rachel Center.

The Bourries will make improvements to a room where parenting classes are offered.

There are 12 more rooms that need refurbishing, including the reception and office areas, a washroom, and storage areas where clothing, food and other supplies are kept.

“We’ve used them the best we could for whatever we were doing,” Darlington said of the spaces, but now the Center is asking the community for help in making improvements aimed at extending the Center’s outreach.

Darlington is the Center’s only paid employee, and she is helped by a staff of 10 dedicated volunteers. The office is open from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and serves 35 to 40 people each week.

It’s not unusual for Darlington to work outside her office hours to help those who need help, such as a run to the hospital’s emergency room. She’s attended a birthing and one young mother and her children even moved in with Darlington and her husband, Ernie, for several months when they had nowhere else to go.

“If done properly, it would be 24/7,” she says of the Center.

Darlington doesn’t complain about any of the extra duties she’s called to perform away from her three-day schedule. In fact, she’s happy to help families in need.

“We don’t have throwaway children,” Darlington says. “Some think we do. We do not have throwaway children — we do not.”

Still, she says she was becoming frustrated by her seeming inability to make a difference through her efforts.

“The real thing we need to be helping with is changing lives,” she said.

Darlington hopes to help young families learn the value of bonding with their children and teaching them life lessons.

“I prayed all these years that I could turn this into something different,” she said.

And then along came Fry.

“She just really encouraged me that I could do more,” Darlington said. “I knew all along — I just needed the push.”

Fry encouraged her to step up the Center’s outreach to families.

“We need to help them make better decisions and encourage them to do that,” she said. “And help them, when they stumble and fall, to go on.”

The Rachel Center offers help to all ages, ranging from single parents, to grandparents who are raising young children or foster parents who might need some extra help or advice.

Services include pregnancy tests and peer counseling, family peer counseling, referrals, life skills classes, Bible studies and prayer.

The Center is gearing up for its annual Christmas Shop event at the former Blockbuster building at 1975 Baker St. The shop, which served 371 families last Christmas, will open Dec. 5.

The community has been very supportive of the Center’s efforts and fills its needs for supplies and volunteers, Darlington said.

Churches throughout the community make contributions during the baby bottle drive between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day when church members are asked to fill baby bottles with their spare change.

Another major community fundraiser is the fall banquet. Darlington said she notified those attending this year’s banquet at the Baker City Christian Church that she’d soon be putting out a call for more help.

And the adopt-a-room challenge is that call, she says.

To volunteer to help with the effort or for more information about the Rachel Center and its services, call Darlington at the office at 541-523-5357 or at her home at 541-523-8876.