March 2006 Newsletter
Back to Main Newsletters PageUsually in my monthly letters to you, I focus on one or two powerful stories to share how your investment in Healing the Culture has been changing hearts and rebuilding a pro-life fabric in our culture.
But there have been so many exciting events recently that it's difficult to focus on just one. Let me tell you about our progress on several major fronts so that you can see how your committed partnership is making a difference!
First, our speakers at Healing the Culture have been swamped in the last several weeks with a multitude of Life Principles training, speaking, retreat events, and media opportunities. We are being asked to train deacons, religious educators, teachers, college-aged youth group leaders, and others. In the last month alone, we have participated in youth discussion groups, women's retreats, parish-wide educational functions, pro-life conferences, high school and college lectures, radio interviews, and newspaper articles.
The success of this year's programs is phenomenal. We're witnessing an unprecedented number of positive evaluations, new partners, product orders, and website traffic being driven by these events. We attribute this to:
(1) increased visibility of the Life Principles through Father Spitzer's three television series which rerun frequently on the EWTN worldwide television network,
(2) targeted and powerful staff presentations, made excellent by two years of analyzing evaluations and feedback from audience members , and
(3) a highly-acclaimed website which provides a wealth of resources (Toronto Right to Life just named us one of "the best, most informative websites on the Net"). If you haven't seen it in a while, check it out at www.healingtheculture.com.
Our latest major event was "Mount 2000" in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where we taught the Life Principles over a three-day period to 2,000 high school and college students. The experience was unbelievable.
All 2,000 young people listened to us teach the Life Principles in four 45-minute interactional presentations, with rapt attention. To say that youth today are hungry for the truth is an understatement. We have been swamped this last week with follow-up emails from students and requests from various church youth leaders who want to schedule us for events in their communities. One school principal in Delaware called to have us make a presentation to her students. She hadn't even attended the event in Emmitsburg, but was acting in response to the enthusiastic comments her students were making after returning from the conference, citing all that they had learned and how their opinions on the life issues had changed. The photo at the top of this letter provides a glimpse of the positive feedback we received at the Emmitsburg event.
Also in the last few weeks, we've reached almost 1,000 additional students through school presentations, and nearly 1,200 adults at church events. Our Director of Special Projects, Lisa-Ann Oliver, trained 25 college students to help lead Life Principles retreats for high school teens.
By the way, since Lisa-Ann's inspirational opinion piece ran in the Seattle Times a few weeks ago, we've been receiving increased requests to speak around the country. Her article, which encourages positive solutions to the problems that lead to abortion, yielded a flood of positive responses, requests to reprint, and even provoked a very defensive and grasping letter to the editor from the head of a Planned Parenthood affiliate. (Read Lisa-Ann's article.)
My friends, abortion is getting harder and harder for abortionists to defend, and they're scrambling to keep people from knowing the truth. The false edifice they created to supposedly shelter unsuspecting and vulnerable men and women is crumbling at their feet. Now is the time for us to replace their ruins with principles of true freedom, real hope, and authentic love.
That's one of the reasons why Healing the Culture is partnering with four Canadian national and regional pro-life groups to host the first-ever International Life Principles Conference this November. We'll be telling you more about this project in upcoming letters, but the purpose of the conference will be to educate hundreds of pro-life leaders in Life Principles strategies for success.
Finally, I wanted to let you know that all of this increased educational activity has necessitated an increase in staff. We're working with a professional organizational development team to bring on a contracted Senior Development Associate whose role will be to help us expand the organization's resources to match our current energy and our vision for the future. Please pray for this effort, and for blessings on our current and future staff.
We need you to help us continue to provide excellent pro-life education and training for pro-life professionals. Your donation is what fuels all of our work, and we cannot do anything without your support. We are totally reliant on the generosity of your gifts. With your help right now, we will continue to grow and to fill up this culture with the tools it needs to become a culture of life once again. Please consider making a generous contribution today. We thank you in advance for the resources you provide.
God bless you,
Camille E. De Blasi, President
| March 2006 | ||
| March 3-5 | Yakima, WA | Teen youth retreat "That Life Rally!" (Camille De Blasi) Contact Dan Bartleson, 509-965-7119 ciayouthministry@yahoo.com |
March 16 | Seattle, WA | Retreat for Lay Ecclesial Ministers "Love for Life - Finding Our Voice" (Camille De Blasi) Contact Eric Paige, ericpaige@comcast.net |
| March 17 | Richland, WA | Staff Life Principles training Catholic Family and Child Services (Camille De Blasi) |
| March 17 | Pasco, WA | Teen presentation "Making Decisions That Result In Happiness and Freedom" (Camille De Blasi) |
| March 18 | Tri-Cities, WA | Pro-Life conference "It's About Life" (Camille De Blasi and Norma McCorvey) Contact Doug DuVon, duvon6@verizon.net |
| March 20 | Seattle, WA | Life Principles teacher training (Camille De Blasi) |
| March 25 | Mercer Island, WA | Pro-Life Symposium Contact: 206-232-2900 Or visit: www.stmonica.cc/respectlife (Camille De Blasi) |
| March 25 | Shoreline, WA | Pro-Life evening "The Life Principles: Forging a Pro-Life Culture" (Camille De Blasi) |
| April 2006 | ||
| April 1 - 2 | Los Angeles, CA | 2006 Religious Education Conference "A Pro-Life Philosophy" (Rev. Robert Spitzer) |
| April 23 | Kennewick, WA | Teen Life Principles presentation (Lisa-Ann Oliver) |
| April 28-30 | Wichita, KS | Diocesan retreat "Moved by God's Love" (Camille De Blasi) |
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