The Forestville Pregnancy Center was opened in January 1984. The goal and purpose of the Center are to enable women to make educated and healthy decisions about their pregnancies and their sexuality. We promote abstinence and traditional family values.
The FPC is nondenominational. Over 18,000 persons have received help from the FPC since its doors were first opened. Most were women who were pregnant or who thought they might be. More than 15,000 have received direct services by coming into the Center and others were helped by phone through information and education. Volunteers are trained by the Center’s Volunteer Coordinator. Our counselors are all attend a 20 hour in house training program, including several supervised observations. We currently have 25 volunteers at the Center.
All of the FPC’s services are absolutely free, including pregnancy testing, counseling, material assistance, viability sonograms, referrals, and pregnancy education classes. The Forestville Pregnancy Center is a non-profit (501(c)(3), non-political and non-sectarian corporation. The Center is an independent entity governed by a volunteer board of directors. There is no parent organization that underwrites our funding or our staffing. We solicit all of our income from donations, grants, and fundraising efforts. Each year we serve approximately 1000 clients who mostly come from Prince George's County but our doors are open to all women regardless of where they live. We see clients from Montgomery, Charles, Garrett, Baltimore, Calvert, and Anne Arundel counties as well as Virginia and the District of Columbia. Ninety-three percent of our clients are single and ninety-five percent are African American.
On May 7, 2009, life took a different turn for the Forestville Pregnancy Center. At 1:20 pm, 15 minutes after a 911 call was placed to the Fire Department by one of the pregnancy center's volunteers who smelled a gas leak, the Forestville Pregnancy Center was destroyed. Five other stores were also demolished in this horrific explosion. Six firemen and two Pepco workers sustained minor injuries but there were absolutely no fatalities. With an ongoing investigation of what caused the gas leak, several more gas leaks in stores near the explosion site, and continued efforts to rebuild, it would be 18 months to two years before the Forestville Pregnancy Center could set down roots again in the Penn Mar location.
The year before, through an interesting set of circumstances, Chyllene McLaughlin, the former director of the Center, was contacted by a Christian businessman/philanthropist who offered her an office suite in a medical building located in Marlow Heights, Maryland. Being leased for a tenth of what the rent was at Penn Mar, the offer was too good to turn down! This became the satellite center for the Forestville Pregnancy Center. Little did Chyllene or the 25 volunteers and three staff members at the Center, realize that this was going to be the beginning of a new chapter in the pregnancy center's history. Due to volunteer staffing and operation times of daytime hours only, this site had been open to clients two days a week. But that would soon change...
Today, two years later, the Forestville Pregnancy Center at Marlow Heights (the former satellite center) continues to help approximately 60 women a month with its free services. The pregnancy center at 3611 Branch Avenue, suite 102, is open Monday through Friday from 10 am to 2 pm and Saturday from 10 am to 1 pm. All are happy, thankful for life, and thriving in a new but cherished environment.