FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS, The Life Center of Santa Ana has been building Christ-centered relationships with families at risk of abortion and providing the real support needed to choose life.
While our mission has remained the same, the ways we care for our families have grown and evolved, much like a strong tree—deeply rooted in Christ, with branches that continue to grow and provide even more meaningful support.
TAIRA SHORTLY AFTER GIVING BIRTH TO BABY JADE. PHOTOS COURTESY OF MEGAN MORRIS
The Life Center has grown into a beautiful ministry of love, both an extension of the Church and a bridge back home to her.
Although we provide practical support like diapers and wipes, The Life Center of Santa Ana is not a Pregnancy Resource Center. We are a Catholic Pregnancy Care Center guided by the Holy Spirit. He told us years ago that diapers don’t save babies. Christ-centered relationships do.
Today, we put that love into action through free pregnancy testing, accurate information about their options, ultrasounds at our provider, practical assistance and incentivized virtue-based parenting programs for teen and young adult mothers and fathers. We have seen the fruits of the Holy Spirit at work with 189 babies born under our care in 2025. Praise the Lord, Jesus’ little children are being born!
All our programs have a bigger purpose: Family Flourishing. From the very first phone call, through intake and consultation, through our parenting programs, mentoring and postpartum care, we are working to strengthen the “Five Pillars of Family Flourishing”: Faith and Community, Family Stability, Health and Wellness, Education and Future Goals, and Parenting and Life Skills.
We have also seen, firsthand, the heartbreaking reality that the families we serve often face challenges far beyond what practical assistance can address, causing a mother to feel that abortion is her only option. Our response must continue to be one of putting our faith into action. A relationship that says I will walk alongside you. I am with you. Twenty-eight years ago, Pope John Paul II addressed the Italian Pro-Life Movement and said: “. . . where concrete support is offered… women are able to make the sense of love, life and motherhood triumph within them.”
That is what we try to do —turn fear into triumph!
TAIRA AND SOME OF THE OTHER MOMS IN ONE OF THE LIFE CENTER OF SANTA ANA’S PARENTING PROGRAMS.
Almost two years ago, we prayerfully took a bold step and launched our Benevolence Grant. The grant works alongside our parenting programs and mentoring to help strengthen those Five Pillars and move families toward flourishing. Through the grant, vulnerable women are moving from being abortion-determined, to becoming adoption minded or to making the courageous decision to parent their baby.
The grant helps remove some of the financial pressure women are carrying so they can begin making decisions from a place of hope instead of a place of fear. *Angel (name has been changed for privacy) was just 20 years old when she told us that she knew abortion was wrong but, overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty, she was too afraid to move forward with her pregnancy.
Today, because of the support provided through the grant, Angel is triumphant! She speaks beautifully about how that number one pillar, Faith and Community, has never been so strong.
From the moment *Nikki’s parents found out she was pregnant, they perpetuated shame, blaming Nikki for ruining not only her own life, but the lives of her family members. Nikki gave birth to her daughter just five weeks ago, and she is back at college, working so hard on her Education and Future Goals pillar.
Taira, another grant recipient, recently spoke at our annual Share Your Treasure event.
“Finding out I was pregnant before my wedding brought an incredible amount of guilt and shame for me,” she shared. “It felt like I had failed God. The weight of it all became overwhelming and I honestly didn’t know how I could continue with the pregnancy. In my darkest moments, I thought about terminating the life of my baby.”
Taira added, “I needed to know I had someone in my corner who saw something in me that I could no longer see for myself — someone to come alongside me and remind me I wasn’t alone.
“For me, that was The Life Center of Santa Ana. With ongoing mentoring, their team gave me the confidence, emotional support and encouragement I needed to look forward to the future with hope instead of fear.”
Beyond the parenting programs, the Center helped cover Taira’s hospital expenses and provided her with monthly financial support through a grant while she was on unpaid leave.
Taira’s story beautifully illustrates what Family Flourishing looks like when practical support is joined with relationships, mentoring, encouragement and faith. We currently have five previously abortion-vulnerable mothers triumphantly being supported with the Benevolence Grant.
This is what it means to turn fear into triumph: to walk with women and families so they know they are not alone, they are enough and they are deeply beloved.