The ACU for Life club is currently receiving applications for the pregnancy and parenting scholarship.
The scholarship is anywhere from $500 to $1500 and is open until March 18. It is available to anyone who is a parent or pregnant and is to help alleviate the financial burden of trying to be both a parent and a student, said Eliza Andersen the chair of scholarships and services for ACU for Life.
“The goal is to kind of show that, you know, we are out here to support women and fathers and people who are parenting,” said Andersen, sophomore government major from New York, “That’s kind of a difficult thing to be doing in college, so this is here to just offer our support and also financial help.”
The club also hopes that the scholarship will provide an alternative for those who may be looking for an abortion, said Madelyne Arrowood, the president of ACU for Life.
“We don’t want people to feel like they have to have an abortion because they can’t afford to have a child,” said Arrowood, junior management major from Arizona, “This is here as a financial resource to help people and show that we do care.”
The scholarship has been around for six years and at its biggest was given to 14 individuals. The club as a whole has been around for ten years.
“So we have a mission statement to educate people about pro-life issues and support pro-life advocates in arguing about the issue,” said Arrowood. “We’re just teaching people how to respectfully and kindly argue for what is currently a very unpopular position, particularly amongst our generation.”
ACU for Life also partners with local Abilene charities, like Little Steps Care, West Texans for Life and Safe Haven Baby Boxes to provide childcare, pregnancy resources and abortion alternatives to the community.
Outside the scholarship there are other resources for those who are pregnant or parenting, said Andersen.
“Get connected to people like us who are here to help and we want to support people,” said Andersen, “Then we can also connect them to places like Pregnancy Resource Center of Abilene that are able to help them with some of the support that they need.”
