Phillips Center Groundbreaking
June 23, 2021
We have exciting news to share regarding the progress of our much-anticipated Phillips (south Minneapolis) center! Last week we broke ground on the property, surrounded by community partners, pastors, and others invested in this project, including several elementary school classes from Hope Academy down the street. There have been many times over the past nine years that I have questioned whether or not this day would ever come! It has been a long road to get here, but we couldn’t be more excited.
It was nine years ago that we felt a prompting from the Lord to add a fifth center location. We formed a task force in 2013, to pray over, think strategically and identify the location of our next center, which resulted in the recommendation of Phillips. What we didn’t know at the time was how tiny our vision actually was in relation to all that God would have in store for this dream. We also didn’t know just how much we would fall in love with the Phillips community.
Four years ago we began taking steps to execute our vision as well as fundraise for the project. We never imagined owning property, let alone building a facility from the ground up. However, isn’t it just like God to take our tiny vision and turn it into something far greater than we could have even imagined? We are now building a 12,600 facility that will not only house our largest pregnancy center, but also a full-service medical clinic offering prenatal care and whole family care for our clients and the community at large!
One of the greatest joys of this journey has been meeting Dr. Odam and his wife Abena, and hearing about how they were already serving the Phillips community in a way that resonated with our heart and mission. One of the things that impressed me immediately was that they had large family exam rooms, where a single mom could come with all of her children to be seen at once. They were proactively eliminating barriers that families face in receiving needed health care. It was truly a God-moment when we recognized our alignment, and how our facility could be so much greater than we had ever imagined!
One of the interesting things about this particular property is the original building was a neighborhood medical clinic, and now, after more than 80 years we are able to bring that back to the community!
While we have built connections and partnerships in the Phillips neighborhood over the past several years, we are excited for the opportunity to have a physical presence and to become a permanent part of the fabric of this neighborhood. It is a community with such cultural richness, strong roots that tie it together, and incredible resilience. We know there are (and will be) significant challenges, but we are honored to be able to come alongside the women, men, children and families in the Phillips community, as our goal has always been to help families thrive!
In Christ,
Tammy Kocher
Executive Director
