16 Pregnancy Resource Centers Apply For More Than $275K From Arkansas Grant Fund

By Tess Vrbin, Arkansas Advocate

August 29, 2022

Sixteen entities have applied for financial assistance from the state’s $1 million grant program created this year to help fund crisis pregnancy centers, adoption agencies and maternity homes.

The application period opened Aug. 1 and ended Friday. As of Aug. 17, no one had applied for the money aimed at helping those facing unintended pregnancy and encouraging them to give birth, said Scott Hardin, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.

Only three organizations had applied as of Friday morning; the other 13 had applied by the end of the day, Hardin said. The influx of applications came after some pregnancy center directors throughout the state expressed concerns about the stipulations of the grant.

One organization applied for the full $1 million available, while the requests from the other 15 totaled $275,991.21, according to data Hardin provided.

Twelve of the 16 organizations are crisis pregnancy centers, one is an adoption agency and one is a maternity care home, according to the data.

The remaining two organizations are Trust Works LLC and the PLUM Foundation, neither of which has its own website.

The PLUM Foundation is a West Memphis-based nonprofit with a mission “to revitalize and develop impoverished communities,” according to a 2020 news release from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Trust Works is a corporation based in Orlando, Florida. It requested the program’s total $1 million and was one of three applicants whose requests did not total exactly or nearly $40,000, according to the data.

The Cradle, a maternity care home in Berryville, requested $5,880, while 1st Choice Pregnancy Resource Center in Hope requested $10,501. More detail from other applicants were not immediately available Monday.

There are more than 50 crisis pregnancy centers in Arkansas, according to Arkansas Right to Life. Some centers are funded solely through donations, according to their websites.

Many of the organizations are religiously affiliated, and some center directors said earlier this month that they would not apply for the grant. They said they feared that accepting government money could restrict their religious missions even if the money would help them expand their services.

Republican state leaders have held up the centers as critical now that abortion has been almost entirely outlawed in Arkansas following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.

The grant program’s specific goal is to help pregnant Arkansans give birth regardless of whether the organization or the client practices any religion, so the money can only be used for non-religious services, Hardin said in an Aug. 10 email.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson and other state leaders had encouraged pregnancy centers to apply for the grant.

“The fact that 16 centers have requested assistance demonstrates the importance of this grant money going to increase access to services as a result of crisis or unwanted pregnancy,” Hutchinson said Monday in an emailed statement.

Hutchinson signed Act 187 of 2022 creating the grant program in March. The law lists the facilities eligible for grant funding as “crisis pregnancy centers,” maternity homes, adoption agencies, and “social service agencies that provide material support and other assistance to individuals facing an unintended pregnancy to help those individuals give birth to their unborn children.”

Grant-eligible organizations “[do] not perform, prescribe, provide referrals for or encourage abortion, or affiliate with any organization that performs, prescribes, provides referrals for, or encourage abortion,” the law states.

The Arkansas Advocate is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to tough, fair daily reporting and investigative journalism that holds public officials accountable and focuses on the relationship between the lives of Arkansans and public policy. This service is free to readers and other news outlets.