The Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend held their annual banquet the evening of Thursday, March 23, 2023, at the American Bank Center with close to 3,000 people in attendance. The banquet’s theme, “Unstoppable,” was characterized in the powerful talks given by Jana Pinson, Executive Director of the Pregnancy Center and actor, author, and producer Kirk Cameron. The enthusiasm of this capacity crowd was a moving show of support for the life-affirming mission of the Pregnancy Center. The staff and volunteers at this local nonprofit serve people of all backgrounds with free services like their HIPP Parenting Program, ultrasounds, and peer advocacy.
“Everhart is overrun,” remarked Pinson, speaking of the Pregnancy Center’s main location on Everhart Road in Corpus Christi. In 2022 alone, the trained staff and volunteers provided “practical, emotional, and spiritual assistance” to over nine hundred men and women, from Corpus Christi, Rockport, and Calallen. They also recorded an incredible 604 “saves”—babies who were born to women who initially contacted the center with the intent to terminate their pregnancies. Because of their staunch faith and hard work, Pinson and her staff have truly been unstoppable, and she extended a message of gratitude to all the generous donors who made it possible for them to touch—and save—so many lives.
Pinson also revealed that hours before the banquet, she gave actor Kirk Cameron a tour of the Center's facilities, introducing him to HIPP peer advocates and the sales and warehouse staff of Hi Again, the Center’s on-sight thrift shop. He was extremely impressed by all that he saw being accomplished. His keynote at the banquet was full of vulnerability and amusement. However, it was also a call-to-arms, and a call to return to the values that our country was founded on.
The affable and relaxed Cameron began by talking about his family, which is a beautiful blend of adopted and biological children. He revealed that even his wife, Chelsea, had been adopted. He went on to tell the story of how one of their adopted daughters, Bella, had nearly been an abortion statistic. When the girl’s biological mother gave her up for adoption, she was told that the baby was now part of a famous family: the Camerons. Just recently, Bella reached out to her birth mom, and the two were joyfully reunited, showing the powerful healing and happiness that can come through choosing life.
In his days as Mike Seaver on the set of the hit television comedy Growing Pains, Cameron had been an atheist. He was ignorant God until his wife Chelsea invited him to church as a first date. Hearing the Gospel led him to experience a powerful conversion. Today, he spends his energy and resources sharing the Gospel’s life-giving message through his work in literature and film as an author and an actor. “Man was made to be God's representative. He was made in His image,” Cameron said. “He commanded us to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Through His Sacrifice, Jesus restores man’s mission on earth and his relationship with God. There’s a heaven and a hell, and it’s all about what you do with Jesus,” said Cameron. “You need to go to him yourself, with humility and faith.”
Cameron believes that the Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend is not only saving babies, but also entire families. “Families are what make up churches and communities, and it is through our families that young people are raised with character and faith. And those are the leaders that we need in this country. I am trying to inspire positive action and amplify what others are doing,” he said.
Cameron recounted how he spent time researching and retracing the journey of the pilgrims to America and how they laid down the blueprint for what would become the “freest, strongest, most prosperous nation the world has ever known.” To illustrate how our forefathers wanted to tie future generations to the principles that gave us liberty, he showed a miniature of the National Monument to the Forefathers in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Its themes of faith, wisdom, morality, justice, mercy, and education were etched into the granite to underscore a very pro-life message, one that would reform and guide the nation.
Cameron also remarked that he believes the Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend is taking on the greatest evil in our world today by educating the next generation so that these young people can make educated choices and be free from the bondage of sin that is celebrated in a culture of death.
With this powerful message, Cameron hopes that the city of Corpus Christi will continue moving forward with the positive momentum following the end of Roe vs Wade, reviving and embracing a culture of life, by joining forces with and supporting organizations like the Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend, so that future generations “may have clean earth to till.”