Spring Appeal
Each year Planned Parenthood of North Central Florida (PPNCF) serves more than 12,000 people in our area. The women, men and teens we serve are as diverse as their needs and they count on us for high quality, low-cost and accessible care and support. PPNCF in turn relies on your generous support to help fund our initiatives.
The clients that we see daily represent a small fraction of the lives we impact across our community through our outreach and work on public policy. To every resident of North Florida we fulfill a promise to serve first rate and affordable medical care, to advocate tirelessly for reproductive rights, and to educate about reproductive health, sex and sexuality. This task proves to be more difficult with each passing day!
Since 1990, federal laws have been in place to help providers like PPNCF buy birth control at discounted prices. Planned Parenthood would then pass on these savings to the women who come to us for services. Congress changed this long-standing law, eliminating the discount prices providers like Planned Parenthood receive. Congress passed a law making the cost of birth control sky rocket for millions of women.
Planned Parenthood has been working diligently with key members of Congress to fix the problem but relief is not coming soon enough. Congress should be making it easier, not harder, for women to have access to affordable contraception. Birth control is basic health care, used by 95 percent of women at some point in their lives. Meanwhile, millions of women are struggling with the soaring costs of birth control because of a legislative mistake.
“I’ve had friends go off their birth control because they can’t afford it. It’s just completely ridiculous.”
university student "The Pill's Price on Campus," U.S. News & World Report, 10/11/07
Our promise to serve, advocate and educate current generations cannot wait. For many young people, access to birth control plays an essential role in determining their futures. By empowering our youth, they are able to break the cycle of poverty, seek educational opportunities and secure gainful employment when they reach adulthood.
Please consider a gift that will help empower thousands in our area. You can help fulfill a promise to serve, advocate and educate thousands through your tax-deductible gift. Your gift to PPNCF is a gift of choice, of freedom, of health!
Your gift provides vital support needed for us to continue our work to provide women and families access to affordable birth control. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to raise a child, yet that is exactly what we expect families to do who can not even afford birth control. Without affordable birth control, families will face serious repercussions.
Below, I have highlighted some disturbing facts and figures:
• Florida is seeing a rise in teen pregnancy for the first time in 10 years! Florida has the sixth highest teen pregnancy rate in the United States.
• "In the United States, nearly half (49%) of the 6.4 million pregnancies each year are unintended? The direct medical costs of unintended pregnancies were $5 billion in 2002. Direct medical cost savings due to contraceptive use were $19 billion." Contraception , Volume 75 , Issue 3, Pages 168 - 170, J. Trussell.
• Results released on March 11, 2008, from a Center for Disease Control study are alarming: 1 in 4 sexually active young women (between the ages of 12-19) have at least one of the most common sexually transmitted infections.
In addition to your gift, you can:
1. Ensure that Congress restores access to affordable birth control by joining our collective plea to Congress to fix this problem.
2. Change someone’s life by sharing your personal story about Planned Parenthood. We need to hear your story so we can share with others the impact that each gift has on our work.
Peace and Miracles,
Staci Fox
President & CEO
P.S. Your gift is part of the solution for the many women and their families who struggle to choose between basic necessities and preventing unplanned pregnancies.
Please Note: One hundred percent of your donation is received by PPNCF. A copy of the official registration and financial information may be obtained from the Division of Consumer Services by calling toll free within the state 1-800-435-7352. Registration (CH875) does not imply endorsement, approval or recommendation by the state.
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