Two sisters raised more than $600 for last month’s third annual Walk for Life that supports the activities of the Pregnancy Resource Center. Ashley and Jessie Woods collected the largest amount among the children who walked and their total was among the top three of the 60 who walked the two-mile circuit, raising more than $8,000. The Pregnancy Resource Center is a program of Selma-Dallas County Sav-A-Life Inc.

Ashley just completed the fifth grade and Jessie Kindergarten at Meadowview Christian.

Mary Carol Marlow, executive director of Sav-A-Life, commended the girls and their parents for the outstanding effort.

“Everybody the girls came across wanted to give for the walk,” said their mother, Pam Woods.

“I took the sponsor sheet to school and to church

(Woodland Heights Presbyterian Church) and it was easy to get people to give,” Ashley said.

Jessie chimed in saying, “I raised over $300 the first day.”

Pam responded, “When I heard that I realized we had a family challenge going, so Ashley and I got to work that afternoon.”

“About half of my pledges came from Globe Amerada (where the girls’ father is co-plant manager)

and the other half from church,” Ashley said.

Jessie, who was born with spinabifida but who gets around quite ably in her wheel chair, said, “I got tired on the walk.”

Pam Woods made a special point of noting that she knew when she was three months’ pregnant that Jessie had spinabifida. The doctor said, “What do you want to do?” Woods responded immediately that she would carry the child to full term and is so happy about her decision. “Jessie is such a blessing to her family and her friends and she’s so brilliant.”

“We had a wonderful, international team of doctors at a clinic in Mobile who were working with us during the pregnancy and as soon as she was born. She got the best care that any child could get with her condition.”

The Pregnancy Resource Center is a nonprofit Christian agency that provides free pregnancy testing, counseling and education for women with a crisis pregnancy, along with abstinence education for area high school students.

For further information, call (334) 875-8900.