The banquet is the largest annual fundraiser for the pregnancy services provider as the organization heads into its tenth year of operations in October.

First Choice Pregnancy Executive Director Sarah Gillis brought benefit attendees up to speed on where First Choice is and where it’s going.

Within the last year, and through donations, Gillis said the First Choice was able to purchase a new ultrasound machine accompanied with training for staff and technical support.

“We are able now to show women and their families their growing babies as young as five to six weeks of age,” she said. “It does make a difference when others can see their baby as a little wiggling jellybean and having a beating heart.”

Staff photo by Gage Cureton Former Minnesota Vikings player and pro-life advocate Matt Birk speaks at the Hero For Life Banquet Tuesday at the New Ulm Event Center.

Gillis said as First Choice moves into its tenth year of operations in October, the pregnancy services provider celebrates the birth of 103 babies born with their assistance to mothers and families.

Gillis paused a moment to collect her emotions.

“I just want you to please not quantify by the numbers because when we look at that number of 103 we should also think of the mothers, the grandparents, the fathers and all those affected by the birth of that one child,” Gillis told attendees. “So it’s an amazing amount of people that our little center influences in just a short period of time.”

Gillis said their mission “continues to stay the same” and they’ll continue to offer their services to women before, during and after pregnancy.

“We do plan in the future though to train two staff people this fall in the public health model call sexual risk avoidance (SRA),” she said. “It’s all about promoting optimal health outcomes for teens and young adults.”

Gillis then presented the 2019 Hero For Life Award to First Choice Pregnancy Client Services Advocate Deane Donovan.

“This is one of the spunkiest women that I’ve ever met,” Gillis said. “She keeps her center very light-hearted when we all want to maybe get a little stressed out.”

Gillis said one of the greatest attributes Donovan has is the relationships she build with clients at the center.

“They call her in the off hours and she is there for them one hundred percent, 24-7,” she said.

The banquet hosted former Minnesota Vikings player and pro-life advocate as a featured speaker. Birk shared experiences of how he got involved in the pro-life movement.

“Abortion is an abhorrent, disgusting, horrible thing,” Birk said.

Birk said he was always a pro-life advocate, but was never public about his stance and beliefs. He said this changed one day when he received a call from the Archbishop of the Diocese of Baltimore who asked him to speak at a March for Life rally.

“I had never stepped out and spoke or done anything publicly for pro-life,” Birk said.

At the rally, Birk said he met a radio DJ personality for the event and he asked her why she was attending the march. Birk said she told him she was an “abortion survivor.”

“And I said ‘I don’t really know what that means.’ I had never heard that term before,” Birk said.

The woman told him when she was 18-years-old she had an abortion. She told Birk that she didn’t want people to make the same decision as she did.

“I thought ‘wow,'” Birk said. “I said ‘here’s a woman that’s had an abortion and she’s telling everybody that it’s the biggest mistake in her life.’ Who cares what a football player has to say. We should listen to her.”

He said he was taken aback by her story and experienced a realization at the rally.

“That moved me,” He said. “That spoke to my heart because there must be millions of women in this country who are abortion survivors.”

Gage Cureton can be emailed at gcureton@nujournal.com.