Bonnie Taylor is new director of Wayne Pregnancy Care Center
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on May 3, 2004 1:56 PM
A new director has been named at the Wayne Pregnancy Care Center, which works with expecting mothers who need help.
Bonnie Taylor had worked as a computer program analyst for 17 years when she decided to broaden her horizons. After a speaker visited her church and mentioned the needs at a pregnancy care center in Kinston, she began volunteering as a peer counselor.
"I had been praying about getting involved in something, but I wanted it to be a Christian organization," she said. "I felt like that was exactly where I needed to be."
She worked there sporadically for two years when the director told her about a similar center opening in Goldsboro. She called to volunteer at Wayne Pregnancy Care Center and started the first week it opened in January 2003. When Director Vicki Morris went on maternity leave, Mrs. Taylor stepped in and became interim director. In April, the center's board voted to call her as its director.
The Wayne center, she said, not only offers information on pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and abstinence, but supportive programs.
"If a woman is pregnant, we offer a program called 'Earn While you Learn,'" she said. "They can come in as often as once a week, watch videos that deal with prenatal or parenting issues, and earn 'mommy money' that they use to buy maternity clothes or items for the baby."
A post-abortion Bible study is also offered for those who need healing.
Mrs. Taylor said that in the year and a half that the center has been open on Ash Street, about 535 women have been seen, with the average age being late teens and early 20s. "It's obvious by the number of people that we see that it fills a great need in this community," she said.
Funded entirely by donations, Mrs. Taylor said, the center is always looking for more support from churches and organizations. There is also a need for more volunteers so the center can be open more hours.
It is open Mondays from noon until 7 p.m. and Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon until 6 p.m. The phone line, 583-9330, is manned 24 hours a day as a hotline and referral service.
Mrs. Taylor is married to Allen Taylor. They live at Dudley and have five grown children and five grandchildren.