Welcome! FriendsOfAAA.org is your connection to AAA Women's Services, Chattanooga's pregnancy resource center. Your partnership is vital as we work together to end the tragedy of abortion, one life at a time!
We hope you will find helpful information about:
- Our compassionate response to crisis pregnancy
- The safest and best choices for women facing unplanned pregnancy
- Helping young fathers to be great Dads
- Participating in AAA's events for saving lives
- Keeping your church family informed on life issues
- Joining with us in offering life-affirming choices
- Opportunities to bring the healing and hope of Jesus Christ to our city
- Resources to help you stand for LIFE
Thank you for your interest in AAA Women's Services. Please give us a call if you'd like to know more. Better yet, come by and take a tour. We'd love to see you!
Serving the Lord of Life,
Patricia Lindley
Executive Director
Fast Facts, Mission Statement, Statement of Faith, History
Please choose a link above.
Fast Facts - Founded in October 1985 to offer life-affirming options to women in crisis pregnancies.
- Services in two locations: Main office--Vance Road, in the building that once housed Chattanooga’s only abortion clinic; and CHOICES: Women’s Resource Center, AAA’s medical center, located on Houston Street and serving UTC and the downtown area.
- Served approximately 2,400 women in 2006 at our centers and hundreds more via our telephone “Helpline’’ and the Internet.
- Services offered include:
- Free pregnancy testing
- Assistance with finding housing
- Confidential counseling
- 24-hour hotline
- Post-abortion counseling
- Spiritual support
- Maternity clothes
- Baby clothes and equipment
- Educational ultrasounds
- Medical referrals
- Childbirth and parenting classes
- Men’s Ministry
- Financial support: AAA Women’s Services is a 501 (c) 3 organization and is funded by the community through individual gifts, fundraisers, grants and corporate gifts.
- AAA Women’s Services is recognized as a national leader in the pregnancy care center movement, with its staff serving as mentors and advisors for similar operations across the United States.
Mission Statement
At AAA Women’s Services, our mission, in obedience to Christ, is to advocate the choice of life-giving alternatives to crisis pregnancies, to communicate God’s plan for sexuality, and to minister to the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of our clients.
Statement of Faith - We believe the Bible to be the only authoritative word of God; inspired, infallible and profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.
- We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, and His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His personal resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
- We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful man, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential, and that this salvation is received by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and not as a result of good works.
- We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life and to perform good works.
- We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
- We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.
History
It began more than 20 years ago with a handful of concerned citizens offering counseling to abortion-minded women on the shoulders of Vance Road across from Chattanooga’s abortion clinic. Today, AAA Women’s Services is a pregnancy care center providing counseling, support, clothing and equipment, spiritual guidance and medical services to thousands of area women seeking alternatives to abortion.
AAA Women’s Services opened its first location in October 1985. The crisis pregnancy center was strategically located across the street from the former Chattanooga Women’s Clinic, where approximately 2,000 abortions were performed each year. Over 500 women were seen in 1986, the first year of operation. In order to meet the growing demand for services, the first full-time director was hired in 1987.
As the ministry grew, AAA served a significant number of teen-agers and young women facing crisis pregnancy situations. AAA’s leadership believed there was a need for the organization to become proactive in pregnancy prevention and abstinence education. In 1991, AAA’s staff developed a program called “Birds, Bees and other Baloney,’’ designed to present truth on the issue of sexuality. That effort launched Why kNOw, an abstinence education program that became an independent organization in 2003. Today, Why kNOw serves as a national model for similar programs. The Why kNOw curriculum is widely used in Chattanooga area schools.
A significant milestone in AAA’s history occurred in 1993, when friends of the ministry purchased the Vance Road building that had housed the Chattanooga Women’s Clinic for 18 years. The Pro-Life Majority Coalition of Chattanooga (ProMaCC) is a group of concerned citizens, business leaders, clergy from various denominations, and professionals who raised enough funds to buy the clinic site just weeks before its 15-year lease expired.
AAA Women’s Services remodeled half of the building and moved into its new office in February 1994. The remainder of the site houses the National Memorial for the Unborn, where families nationwide can memorialize children lost to abortion.
By the late 1990s, research showed that the majority of women seeking abortions were 19 years of age and older. Seeking an opportunity to be available to this unique clientele, AAA Women’s Services opened a satellite office in the Doctor’s Building on McCallie Avenue, near the UTC campus and easily accessible to women working downtown.
To increase availability, the center was relocated to 615 Houston Street in 2003. The location was remodeled and named CHOICES: Women’s Resource Center. It serves as AAA’s medical facility where clients can receive free limited ultrasounds and medical referrals.
AAA Women’s Services has expanded over the past two decades and now employs a staff of 11 with approximately 50 volunteers. A Men’s Ministry was established in 2006, offering services to men facing unexpected fatherhood.
The staff, supporters and volunteers of AAA Women’s Services continue to advocate for women by offering help and hope at a time in their lives when truth and friendship are most needed. As the agency serves in its 22nd year, that has made all the difference in lives that have been saved and changed.
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