The Sacramento Life Center has taken its life-affirming message and mission on the road with the recent opening of a new satellite clinic in Roseville.

The Life Center’s homey new office, located on Coloma Way, has been at the top of the agency’s expansion wish list for some time.

“Roseville is a real natural for our first satellite office,” said Tom Kubasak, executive director of the Life Center. “We’ll be able to serve the Roseville, Auburn and Loomis areas and make it easier on clients who couldn’t make it into our downtown Sacramento office.”

Madalyn Wyatt, manager of the Roseville clinic, which includes counseling, ultrasound and conference rooms, said it was designed “to provide a comfortable, non-threatening place to be.”

“The lives of many of our clients are such that we want to treat them as guests in their own home because for some what we say may be the only kind word they hear,” she said.

Wyatt worked for nine years at Kaiser Permanente Sacramento and Roseville medical facilities as a pediatric nurse and then as a medical consultant prior to taking her position with the Life Center.

She said the goal at the Life Center is to assist the people they serve, from the marginalized to married couples and “everyone in between,” to make educated decisions.

One of their most valuable tools in this regard, she said, is ultrasound screenings which provide pregnant women with clear images of the unborn child they are carrying.

“For about 70 percent of these women, once they see a beating heart, not just a bunch of cells, they turn around in surprise — the fathers too,” she said.

Kubasak said education services include not only information about fetal development but “what is going on in a woman’s own body” and the various choices for expectant mothers, including adoption and keeping the baby.

In addition to providing counseling in English and Spanish, Life Center services include referrals to housing, food, clothing and medical services, and a crisis pregnancy hotline which operates seven days a week.

The satellite office, which is staffed by counselors, a social worker and an ultrasound technician, is open Mondays and Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

An open house is planned for Feb. 12 from 7 to 9 p.m. at 1224 Coloma Way in Roseville. “It’s an opportunity for the local community to know we’re open and operating, so if they know women who might need our services, they’ll know where to come,” Kubasak said.

Long-range plans include opening additional satellite offices in Davis and Elk Grove.

For more information about the Sacramento Life Center’s office in Roseville, call (916) 451-4357. The pregnancy hotline number is (916) 773-3838.

Copyright © 2004 Diocese of Sacramento - All Rights Reserved