The S.C. Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy Road Show is coming to the Pee Dee today to inform local leaders about the perils of teen pregnancy.
Cayci Banks, spokeswoman for the Campaign, said the Road Show is part of National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month.
“We’re meeting at various locations throughout the state,” she said. “We are going to 20 different counties 41 events in 11 days.”
Monday was the first day of the road show. It will last through May 23.
“(We’re) really just trying to get out there to the communities in South Carolina and get the word out about pregnancy prevention,” Banks said.
The campaign will be holding a faith leader breakfast at the Pee Dee Healthy Start office in Florence, followed by an invitation only awareness luncheon in Bennettsville.
At 5 p.m., the campaign will be heading to Hartsville for a drop-in dinner that is open to the public at the New Vision office on Bethlehem Road.
Forrest Alton, executive director of the campaign, said their mission is complicated even though it sounds simple.
“Our mission is to prevent adolescent pregnancy in South Carolina through education, technical assistance, public awareness, advocacy and research,” Alton said.
He said the campaign works with programs and community leaders in each of the 46 counties in the state.
The road show, Alton said, is a chance for him and his staff to congratulate the people working with teens on a daily basis to prevent this widespread epidemic from expanding further in South Carolina.
“May, being Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month, gives us a nice opportunity to meet people who are truly doing the difficult day to day work,” he said. “In South Carolina, we have made great progress preventing teen pregnancy.”
He said teen pregnancy rates in the state have decreased nearly 40 percent during the past 15 years.
“That’s the good news,” he said. “But at the same time we have no opportunity to become complacent because nearly 10,000 teen girls get pregnant in our state each year. That is equal to one teen girl under the age of 20 getting pregnant every 58 minutes.”
He said the purpose of the road show is to not only congratulate community leaders on a job well done, but to encourage them to continue fighting to make a difference in the lives of teenage girls in South Carolina.
“We’ve made good progress preventing teen pregnancy, but we still have a lot of work to do,” Alton said.
For more information about the road show, contact Cayci S. Banks, director of communications, at (803) 771-7700 or cbanks@teenpregnancysc.org.
If You’re Going:
What: S.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy Road Show
When: Noon today at Pee Dee Healthy Start, 314 Pine St., Florence;
5 p.m., today at New Vision, 1416 Bethlehem Road, Hartsville.
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