Knights Support Growth of St. John Paul II Life Center

It its 8^th year of operation, the St. John Paul II Life Center in Austin, Texas, continued to be actively supported by Knights of Columbus Councils and members of the State Family.Shown above is Richard Ames, Board member and Co-Chair of the Circle of Life as he meets at the October Austin Chapter meeting to discuss the Center’s Life is Beautiful Gala.Pictured with him are (left to right): Giacomo Leone - Chapter Vice President, Ed Tydings – Austin Diocesan Deputy, Joe Jimenez – Chapter President, Warren Pederson – Deputy Grand Knight, Richard Ames – St. John Paul II Life Center, Blake Krass – Chapter Treasurer, Ramiro Balli – Chapter Secretary.

The Gala was November 13 at the AT&T Conference Center in Austin.Numerous Councils bought tables and sponsored Priests and KC member attendance.Proceeds from the Gala help pay for operating costs of the Center and are critical to being able to allow abortion minded women to see that it’s a “baby” growing inside the mother’s womb”.Every time a baby’s life is saved because of seeing the baby’s heartbeat it’s because of the sonogram machine received from the KC’s, “said Tim Von Dohlen, PSD and Co-Founder of the Center.

This has been a year of reorganization and strategic planning for the future of the Center. A few of the significant accomplishments this year have been:

• Hiring the Center’s first full-time CEO to be responsible for managing the overall business operations of the Pregnancy Help Center and Vitae Clinic.This is Mark Fair from Austin with years of experience in the technology field and who will be ordained a Deacon next spring.
• Maintaining a full-time CPA in-house to handle the growing accounting responsibilities at the Center.This is Kristen Hughes who first came to the Center as a volunteer.
• We are so appreciative of Board member Paul Stone, a CPA and business transition specialist, who stepped in for 10 months as Interim CEO and was responsible for (a) leading refinement of our Strategic Plan, (b) developing a Business Plan to grow the training of women to chart their cycle so that our NaPro trained physicians can best assist a patient to solve any physical problem she is experiencing in order to help her become pregnant.Heather Kalamarides wife of Dr. Jeremy Kalamarides, Medical Director of the Vitae Clinic, and NaPro Practitioner is leading this effort, and, (c) a Business Plan to grow the infertility practice so that more women struggling to conceive can be helped.The Vitae Clinic’s two full-time Ob/Gyns, Dr. Jeremy Kalamarides and Dr. Blake Weidaw, are leading the way on this effort.
• The Vitae Clinic implemented a new electronic medical record system (EMR) called Athena which is state of the art for such systems.
• The Center completed, in partnership with Sophia Institute for Teachers, a curriculum supplement on Human Sexuality which has just been printed and is available for use as a Teacher’s Guide in grades 4-12.We believe this is extremely important to the future of young girls and boys to understand why there are differences between girls and boys and the reasons that need to be understood.

Thanks to all the Knights of Columbus across Texas for your help.Please pray for the St. John Paul II Life Center.Please consider volunteering.

“Lives saved.Hearts changed.Dignity maintained.Knights of Columbus a part of it all.” concluded Von Dohlen.