Pregnancy Center’s new leader named

0
Shelly Burkhart is the new director at the BG Pregnancy Center. (Photo: J.D.
Pooley/Sentinel-Tribune)

The Bowling Green Pregnancy
Center Board of Directors has hired a new executive director.Shelly Burkhart, who replaces Lynette Worthy as
center director, comes to Bowling Green from the Pregnancy Center of Greater Toledo. There she served as the
client services director for the past two and a half years.A native of Bedford, Mich., Burkhart currently
resides in Waterville and has a background in both ministry and banking."I worked for Cedar Creek
Church (in Perrysburg) for seven years" and for St. Timothy Episcopal Church, also in Perrysburg, for
two years before that.She started her career with 19 years in the banking business. "I started with
Toledo Trust and went through five mergers" with the bank."Shelly is thrilled to be our new
executive director and has an incredible passion for women, the unborn and to help post-abortive women
heal," notes center board member Veronica Urban.Her current career in crisis pregnancy services is one
that Burkhart has fully embraced, coming to it with unusually personal motivation."I myself am a
post-abortion survivor," she explained, "so I do have a huge passion for women in that
situation."She quotes U.S. Guttmacher Institute statistics showing that "one of three women of
childbearing years will have an abortion," so clearly the population of affected women is
huge."When I was 16, I was date-raped. I did not have a choice" about whether or not to have an
abortion at that time. "I was not taken to a pregnancy center."Burkhart and her husband, Bruce,
have been married for 24 years. Bruce works at the Toledo Zoo. They have two children. One is a Bowling
Green State University graduate and the other is currently attending the university.In her spare time,
Burkhart is an avid seamstress. This past summer she made over 100 dresses that she took to Kenya, Africa,
for a mission trip. In Kenya, the team reached out to street children in Kawangware, a slum outside the
capital city of Nairobi.The main purpose of the trip, she said, was to visit churches and increase awareness
among pastors about the best way to serve women who have had abortions or are facing crisis
pregnancies."Abortion is now legal over there," Burkhart explained, so the aim was to encourage
pastors that if they find someone who is pregnant to educate them that abortion is not the only option they
have. Within the church communities in Kenya, women who are pregnant outside of marriage are generally
shunned, she added. The members of her team worked to replace that attitude with a message of support for
women who are pregnant and scared.That same kind of support is offered locally, Burkhart said.The BG
Pregnancy Center, which opened its doors in 1985, is currently located at 441 Frazee Ave. It offers free
pregnancy testing and free ultrasounds, among other services. For more information call 419-354-4673.

No posts to display