Wakota – a Guiding Star Center, originally known as Wakota Life-Care Center, is situated on a bustling corner of Butler Ave E and S Robert Street in St. Paul Minnesota. Virginia (Ginny) Cronin, the Executive Director, often passed the time in traffic at this intersection wondering about what had filled the space behind the walls of this iconic Pregnancy Resource Center (PRC) for over 40 years.

At a point of transition in her own life balancing the demands of motherhood and career, Ginny called upon her Creator for purpose and guidance and she found herself drawn to the PRC. The Executive Director position became vacant and doors were opened in a fashion that can only be described as divine. The skills she had acquired in her prior jobs as practicing attorney, legal account management and change management had prepared her for her new leadership role at Wakota.
Wakota has provided care to thousands of women as a local, low-cost medical clinic and PRC since 1976. After Ginny came onboard at Wakota, Hallie Rogers from Guiding Star Twin Cities (GSTC) introduced Ginny to the Guiding Star Project (GSP) at a Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Christmas Lunch in 2015. Ginny saw the Guiding Star affiliation as an opportunity to expand and strengthen existing infrastructure. Affiliation also increase the possibility for the center to rise as a contemporary leader in the community providing holistic care that meets women where they are at regardless of their professional, socioeconomic, or marital status. According to Ginny, association with GSP is “the future of pro-life, pro-woman, and pro-child care, holistic and embracing the beauty of womanhood, motherhood, and personhood.”
Many of us can relate to the challenges that Ginny has experienced as a working mother with three young children. Ginny shared that discrimination of the mother permeates society and that she has been subjected to it by colleagues who do not see the value of even unpaid parental leave, employers that viewed a pumping mother as a disservice to their organization, and through judgement from women who “chastised” her for “leaving” her children to contribute to her family.  Transforming Wakota into a Guiding Star Center presented an opportunity to create a place that would be sensitive to the needs of evolving 21st century New Feminism– to stand up to discrimination that has been normalized as socially acceptable.
Following affiliation, the center increased their services that target fertility awareness, family planning, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and family life. One of the secrets to the center’s success is resourcefulness. The center operates on a modest budget of $300,000 annually, while serving close to 250 women and families per month with 7,000 – 10,000 total services provided in 2016. The positive message of the center paired with their engagement in the community continues to grow, with 440 new clients added in 2016, and 44 new clients in January 2017 alone.
The center offers health equity for all and as Ginny states, is a place “where women can come together and be supportive of one another- no matter who they are, what their vocations are.” This includes but is not restricted to free pregnancy testing and limited obstetrical ultrasounds, pregnancy verification, prenatal care referrals, and abortion pill reversal referrals. Additionally, the center targets material necessities within the community by offering maternity and baby clothes, diapers, wipes, small essentials and large ticket items such as pack and plays for families in need. They educate their community by offering classes on fertility awareness, doula benefits, childbirth preparation, breastfeeding, infant care, and specialized classes such as food budgeting.
Wakota has cultivated local relationships that enable the center to offer legal, employment, childcare resourcing, housing assistance and health care referrals. The staff spent much of the last year conducting “boots on the ground” research by immersing themselves within the community. The center brought in experts across multiple disciplines to ensure that when providing a customer with a referral they have complete confidence that the experience will result in life-affirming positive care. As Ginny puts it, “I am passionate about making sure that our community knows us and we know them. Meaning, any referral that we provide- we know who they are, what is going to happen.”
Wakota exemplifies the capacity for a committed team to change the trajectory of a life in one genuine interaction. Services are personalized in order to meet the unique needs of every woman that walks in the door by considering her in totality beyond the conventional roles that she may hold. In one of many instances where holistic care has been modeled at the center, a woman came in for help with breastfeeding and as this need was met with compassionate advice and a delicious lactation cookie recipe, the staff also engaged with her and learned that she was wrought with fearful concern about her immigration status. This woman was put into contact with immigration attorneys to help guide her so that she could focus wholeheartedly on nurturing her baby and herself without additional stressors. Wakota shatters the stereotypes traditionally associated with a PRC by offering tailored services that meet individual circumstances.
Ginny has big dreams for the center including hopes to create a beautiful physical space that can accommodate a growing variety of providers and services. As the center grows, Ginny is continuously “looking for ripe fruit and making timely changes.” With expansion plans coming to fruition, the center will continue to draw upon the expertise of New Feminism pioneers from GSTC to, “build upon their network and have them as incredible ambassadors.”
All staff is currently immersed in fertility awareness education with a goal to be trained in the use of the FEMM Fertility Awareness Teaching Certification by the end of March 2017. Many of the women in the surrounding community seek out bare bones fertility treatments that go no further than a prescription for the pill through local Planned Parenthood facility. Others are often turned away from organizations that teach Natural Family Planning methods such as the Billings Method or Creighton Model due to their status as unmarried women. In an agile response, the center instead will offer a safe place for all women to learn about their bodies and the beauty of natural fertility by leveraging mobile application technology that is readily available to the modern woman. Ginny sees this as the “gateway to fertility awareness,” and a tool that will be used strengthen the feminine community around them.
Ginny’s leadership and the wonderful accomplishments at Wakota are examples of everything that is right with the transformation effort currently underway in women’s healthcare. Ginny understands women’s struggles because she has lived them. Her unique legal background as a licensed attorney and social expertise as a working mother paired with her passion to educate, encourage, and empower women will continue to drive forward as a beacon of hope for women in all facets of life.