Baton Rouge Spring Event

Thank you to everyone who supported Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s Baton Rouge Spring Event on March 30. This year’s event may have looked different from past celebrations, but there was just as much passion and support. Because of your generosity, we raised over $62,000 to continue delivering and expanding essential reproductive health care in the Baton Rouge community.

This year’s two-part event included a virtual session and an evening drive-in movie screening. The virtual event featured guest speaker Jacqueline Ayers, Vice President of Government Relations and Public Policy at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, who discussed the Biden-Harris Administration’s 100-day plan to advance reproductive health. That evening, we hosted a drive-in movie screening of On the Basis of Sex, which depicted the early career of reproductive rights champion and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Your contributions are vital during this time when access to health care is essential. We are already looking forward to our event in 2022!

Our drive-in event was a great way to safely spend time together in the Baton Rouge community.

Patient Care

Every April, Planned Parenthood recognizes STI Awareness Month. STIs are super common — most people get one at some point in their life. Having an STI doesn’t make you “dirty,” or a bad person, it just means you’re one of the millions of people who happened to get an infection. And most of the time, STIs don’t show symptoms, so testing is the only way to know for sure if you have one. Knowing the facts about STIs can help prevent shame and stigma, and that helps keep everyone healthy. Learn more about STIs and make an appointment to get yourself tested.

Education

 The PPGC Education team remains hard at work delivering comprehensive, inclusive sex education to students from Youth Oasis, the Women’s Rehabilitation Center, O’Brien House, Provisions Therapeutic Group Homes of Seaside Healthcare, Louisiana State University, Southern University, Liberty’s Kitchen, Café Reconcile, and Odyssey House New Orleans.

In New Orleans, we are excited to announce the developing partnership between PPGC and Daughters Beyond Incarceration, where middle and high school students explore topics related to sexuality and media safety, gender and sexual identities, healthy relationships, healthy communication, sexually transmitted infections, reproductive anatomy, and protection methods. These twice-monthly lessons focus on peer education in an effort to uplift youth voices and provide opportunities for teen leadership within sex education.

And, as we move into the 2021 Louisiana Legislative Session,  PPGC teenREACH participants will continue to receive reproductive rights and sex ed advocacy training through partnerships with the our Louisiana Public Affairs Team and Lift Louisiana. This quarter, we look forward to developing teens’ creative approaches to advocacy through writing letters to the editor and infographic- and zine-making workshops that will challenge students to identify issues important to them and consider creative ways of communicating those issues to other young people.

Educators will also provide comprehensive sex education and peer education training to youth from faith communities though our first-ever TeenGEAUX program. The TeenGEAUX program is a youth-focused extension of our work with local faith leaders.

Our health educators also continue to provide education and outreach through the Chat/Text program, which enables adolescents and young adults to contact trained Planned Parenthood health educators through text or instant messaging to ask questions about birth control, emergency contraception, STI testing, pregnancy testing, abortion, and more. To chat, simply visit plannedparenthood.org/online-tools/chat or text “PPNOW” to 774636.

Public Affairs

Louisiana’s 2021 Legislative Session begins Monday, April 12, and we need your support. If you want to join the fight against extremist, dangerous attacks on reproductive health, sign up for our Legislative Rapid Response Team, an elite group of activists who commit to specific actions during our fast-paced legislative sessions. With a range of activities based on your time and availability, there's a way for you to make your voice heard! Register here.

Has Planned Parenthood changed your life? Do you have a story to share? We’re always looking for new voices to uplift. To find out more about our Speakers Bureau and future storytelling opportunities, please email [email protected] or visit ppgulfcoast.org/story.