“I can’t afford to be pregnant or who will hire me?” said Jana Pinson, executive director of the Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend. “And to be able to say we will is about the most wonderful thing.”
Hi Again is a thrift store that works directly with the pregnancy center; a place that helps women through their pregnancy journey.
“That will walk with them through anything,” said Pinson. “If they need diapers because they’ve come to the parenting programs, they earn points, and they get strollers, cribs, diapers anything they could possibly need.”
What’s unique about this thrift store, is the employees it chooses to hire.
“I finished out my pregnancy and then was able to return to work with her with me,” said Amber Carson, mom of three children.
Hi Again sets itself apart by giving these moms jobs, and with 5 women working here they say it really is taking a village to raise their children.
“It gives me a community of moms,” said Carson.
Pinson says the money made from the thrift store goes towards paying the mothers salaries and supporting the resources offered at the pregnancy center like free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, and baby items.
But she says the opportunity to hire mothers is its true success.
“They can help with the family income and be able to work and they baby wear or they push them in strollers, and they’re pricing stuff all day long,” said Pinson.
Pinson says she hopes hiring these mothers gives them the empowerment they need to successfully raise a child as well as contribute to their household financially.
“We can make parenting a child really reasonable,” said Pinson.
