The other day we cleaned out the storage room. We found a couple of shoeboxes full of old photographs. My first instinct was just to throw them out…they were grainy and poor quality for the most part. But as we began to look through them, I realized that we had uncovered a treasure chest full of reminders of God’s grace on our ministry!
In the weeks ahead, I will be sharing some of the “Shoebox Stories” with you. The photo that I share today is of Dottie Wobb, our founding Executive Director. It was taken in the Spring of 1991 at our first annual fundraising banquet. We hadn’t even opened our doors yet, but 300 people gathered at Rolling Hills Country Club in Davie to hear all about a new ministry to help women in unplanned pregnancies. Those 300 people gave a total of $30,000 and established a tradition that continues…our banquets traditionally raise about half of our annual budget – and in 1991 our annual budget was $65,000!
In 1990, I was asked to serve on a steering committee to start a pregnancy center in the Hollywood-Davie area. I worked with a committee of about 30 people from various churches to learn about pregnancy centers and how they helped women who were considering abortion. We studied, we prayed, and we planned. After six months of hard work, we were ready to hire an Executive Director. I was the Chairman of the Personnel Committee, so with lots of prayers, we started to advertise our need for someone to lead this new ministry.
We interviewed a few people and narrowed it down to one extremely well-qualified candidate with a whole string of degrees after her name. Then, just before we were ready to make an offer, we met with one final candidate named Dottie Wobb. The entire Personnel Committee immediately fell in love with her! She was also well-qualified for the position, but it wasn’t her degree that won our hearts – it was her love and compassion. All of us agreed that we could just imagine her holding the hand of a young woman in a crisis pregnancy and being like an anchor in the storm.
(An amusing side note – I was so enthralled by Dottie’s warm manner and her passion for serving women, that I forgot to ask her how she felt about abortion! A gentle whisper from Vicky, another committee member, reminded me to get back to the basics! )
God’s will was clear to us and we made an offer that Dottie accepted, and she became the founding Executive Director of Reach Out For Life, Inc. dba Crisis Pregnancy Center of South Broward. Is that a name put together by a committee, or what? By God’s grace, we got a new name just a few short years later and became known as Hope!
Dottie served our ministry with excellence for eleven years and retired in 2002, leaving me with very big shoes to fill. Under her leadership we grew from one little center to a county-wide ministry with multiple locations. She led us through a merger with A Woman’s Pregnancy Center in Ft. Lauderdale in 1995, uniting our two ministries to move forward under the new name, “Hope Pregnancy Centers”.
Dottie is still a cherished friend and mentor. Going through that shoebox of old pictures reminded me again of the miraculous ways I have seen God at work at Hope. From the Steering Committee, I transitioned to the Board of Directors and served there for 10 years. From the Board of Directors, I accepted a staff position as Director of Development. When Dottie felt God’s call to retirement, she recommended to the board that I lead the next season of Hope. I worked with her in various roles, and saw an amazing consistency of Godly character through all of our interactions.
As client numbers grew, we identified a need to offer services in the southern part of the county and opened a third center in Miramar in 1997., I joined the staff in 2000, and just before Dottie retired, we opened our fourth location in Pompano Beach. God did some amazing things in the first decade of Hope, as He answered our prayer: “God give us Broward County”!
Dottie led from a position of strong faith, rooted in God’s Word, and made sure that prayer was foundational to the work of the pregnancy center. Every day, in every center, we still gather to pray together because we were taught that nothing happens until we invite God to be part of it! Because of Dottie, our ministry has deep roots and a rich history.
Beginnings are so important, and we are blessed to have started well with Dottie. She also served as a consultant for CareNet, Inc. at the national level and shared her wisdom and insight with other centers all over the US and in Canada.
Hope you’ve enjoyed this Shoebox Story!
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