From trailer to center to 'home'

   

The Vance Avenue Youth Development Center attracts children from various
parts of Memphis. It's a home away from home for most of them, said Barbara
Ann Nesbit, the director. (Photos: Wiley Henry)

     Barbara Ann Nesbit feeds 150 children a day, six days a week – and senior citizens too – in a community tagged by poverty and blight and where many small businesses struggle to survive along the Vance Avenue corridor.

Nesbit runs one of those businesses at 670 Vance Ave., in a trailer housing the Vance Avenue Youth Development Center, which was organized and chartered in 1994 to serve at-risk youths in need of life survival skills.

Given the need, Nesbit would gladly serve even more youths, if she had the space and additional resources.

“Our rules say we can take them from (age) four to high school. But we got some 6-year-olds with 3-year-old brothers and sisters. They bring them over. So I can’t turn those children away,” said Nesbit, who treated youths, adults and a few Memphis police officers to a “salad and loaded potato luncheon” at the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) facility at 280 Cynthia Place earlier this month.

The luncheon was an opportunity for Nesbit to thank her in-kind and monetary donors, including the crew that transformed the trailer into a thriving youth center. The VFW building is a short distance from the center. Nesbit made the return trip hand-in-hand with one of the little girls.

Surrounded by some of the children in the program, Nesbit
thanks supporters for their contributions during a recent luncheon
at the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) facility.

 “I believe in these children. I know somebody had to reach out and help them,” said Nesbit, recalling the motivation to create the youth center when she was employed as a Shelby County Juvenile Court auxiliary probation officer from 1990 to 1997. She and a co-worker combined skills and resources to open the center. Soon after, the co-worker relinquished her role and responsibility to Nesbit, who became the center’s director.

“By me being an auxiliary probation officer – she was too – we knew how the system works,” she said. “These children are our future. And I was not going to give up.”

Her mother, sisters, brothers and husband, James Nesbit, made sacrifices and contributions to get the center up and running with very limited resources, said Nesbit, the eldest of seven children born in Hughes, Ark., and raised in Proctor, Ark., by a single mother “who worked three jobs to take care of her children.”

Drawing upon traits and life-lessons learned from her mother, Nesbit, who doesn’t have biological children, teaches the ones in her charge that giving and sharing are noble qualities.

“My mom would tell us, ‘If you want to share with your friends, go right ahead.’ That’s the way we were brought up,” said Nesbit.

The center, which received its 501(c)(3) tax exemption in 1998, is her life. She sacrifices to feed, educate, clothe and tend to the children’s personal needs, including counseling, if needed. She receives no salary and takes in just enough to keep the doors open.

Her immediate family, she said, initially detested the Vance Avenue location as a youth center, fearing for the safety of her and the children. She ignored their plea to retreat to safer ground.

“It’s bad everywhere,” said Nesbit. “But you see they couldn’t stop me. So they just blend in to help me. I don’t let nobody tell me what I can and cannot do unless I try it for myself.”

Each day the children return for food, fun, games, and programs and for help with their schoolwork.

“We started coming over here the first day,” said 15-year-old Keunna Morris, recalling her family’s move to the neighborhood in January 2013.

“They started telling us about it (the youth center) in school. So we would come over after school. Then I started coming over here every day,” said Morris, now a 10th grader at Booker T. Washington (BTW) High School,

Trinity Bradley, 12, has been a part of the Vance Avenue Youth Development Center’s program since the 4th grade. Now a 7th-grader at BTW Middle School, she said the lessons learned include “that it’s not good to hang around the wrong people. …

“I learned to stay focused and to stay out of trouble. (And) when we get confused about something, she (Nesbit) helps us until we get it.”

Taylor Gardner, 12, and her brother Trey Gardner, 10, confide in Nesbit and seek her help when they get stumped on a school project. A volunteer staff and teachers pitch in, making good use of two computer rooms.

“I get help with homework. I get tutoring. If I don’t have homework, she’ll make me study – like multiplication,” said Trey, a 5th grader at Westside Elementary School. He’s been part of the program for two years.

“I would be poor and wouldn’t have some of the things I need, like clothes, if it had not been for Mrs. Barbara,” he said.

Taylor said Nesbit’s giving extends to people on the street. “She feeds them breakfast, lunch and gives them snacks,” she said.

“I don’t leave anybody out,” said Nesbit, noting her Christian upbringing. “I’m not going to let nobody go hungry; I’m not going to let nobody go without clothes.”

And she keeps a ready supply of kind words. Demesha Bradley, a 5th-grader at LaRose Elementary School, is a witness.

“If you need somebody to talk to,” said the 11-year-old, “Mrs. Barbara is the one to talk to.”

(For more information about the Vance Avenue Youth Development Center or its director, Barbara Ann Nesbit, call 901-527-1145, email info@youthdevcenter.org or visit www.youthdevcenter.org.)

JROQSOL rocks The Dizzy Bird

Jay Smith, who goes by the stage name JROQSOL, wows family and friends at
The Dizzy Bird in Midtown on Sunday (April 3) evening. (Photos: Wiley Henry)

Local pop artist Jay Smith, who goes by the stage name JROQSOL, has a lot to be thankful for. He survived homelessness, bouncing from house to house, and struggled with a weight problem that crimped his vocal cords and caused deep-seated angst.

He’d fallen on hard times after his employer laid him off. Left to fend for himself, he couldn’t find enough work that would afford him a place to stay. He also was in school at the time and dropped out.

“It didn’t feel good,” said JROQSOL, who, despite having no place to call home, managed to compensate the people who wrested him from wretchedness and a life that could have taken even more of a turn for the worst.

Through it all, including losing 110 pounds, JROQSOL was determined to survive. He righted what was wrong in his life and now makes reference to some of those experiences on stage and via message-laden songs.

“I couldn’t tell stories if I hadn’t gone through some of that,” he told an intimate group of family and friends at The Dizzy Bird in Midtown on Sunday (April 3) evening for JROQSOL’s inaugural fan appreciation show, “#For The Survivors: The Take Off Edition.”

Singing a medley of pop and R & B songs, JROQSOL and his backup singers – Sequoia Gray, Kevin Pierre and Dillon Banbenhoek (who played guitar some) – stirred the crowd to hoot and clap.

JROQSOL unleashed three sets of songs, with intermission between each set for a get-to-know JROQSOL interview with the show’s announcer.

JROQSOL and his backup singers – Sequoria Gray, Kevin
Pierre and Dillon Banbenhoek – perform a medley of pop
and R&B songs.

Q: Describe your sound?

A: I love all types of music. Memphis is one of those cities where everybody can sing. … I’m a pop artist with an R & B edge to it. It’s me. It’s who I am.”

Between sets, several gift cards and “huge prizes” were given away to the audience for answering questions correctly about JROQSOL’s life, career and passions. At one point, the announcer asked, “How many people came to JROQSOL’s first show?”

 “Eight people!” someone blurted out about the 2012 show at The Renaissance in Midtown.

“I expected about 500 people, but only eight people showed up,” JROQSOL said. “And I still had to perform like it was packed to the brim. It was actually great training for me.”

Since then, JROQSOL has performed on stage six other times, “at least two shows a year,” he said, adding, “There really isn’t a big platform for pop artists the way that I do what I do.”

Sunday’s “Survivors” performance was “a fan appreciation show for everybody that supported me throughout the years,” he said.

The year 2012 was JROQSOL’s official launch as a pop artist. He’s been singing since childhood, he said, recalling keeping tune to a song on the radio when he was 4 years old.

“My aunt had heard me. She said, ‘Josh, cut the radio off.’ I cut it off but kept singing and she thought it was still the radio. So she kind of was the one who was like, ‘hey, you can sing.’”

Before he was JROQSOL, he was Jay Smith, a preacher’s kid growing up in the church. His father, Dr. Larry Smith, senior pastor of Empowerment of Faith Christian Church in East Memphis, was beholding to gospel music. Secular music was a no-no. 

“Absolutely no secular music was allowed in my home – unless you were with mama (Barbara Smith), who is divorced from his father – or snuck it in whenever you could,” said Smith.

At seven, Smith’s talent registered at Temple of Deliverance Church of God in Christ. “Actually, Bishop (G.E.) Patterson gave me my first solo,” Smith recalls. “I did ‘Talk it Over With Jesus’ with my grade-school class at Bountiful Blessings Christian Academy).”

Smith started his own group at 17, which placed him on a trajectory in gospel music. He sang primarily at his father’s church, where he was “praise and worship leader, youth choir director, everything that a preacher’s child does, I did.”

It was the late gospel legend Daryl Coley who overwhelmed Smith and took him to school with his music and musicianship.

“Daryl Coley is one of the few singers that I can say is the reason why I started singing in the first place,” said Smith. “He made it cool for you to have range and his ear was impeccable.”

Smith got a shot with Andrew Knox and New Change, a local community choir. He sang background on the group’s first album. He also sang and recorded “Be With Me” with Donald Walker and Company.

From group to group, Smith plied his vocal skills – in the background. Then he came to an intersection in his career. He wanted to make a switch to pop music, change his persona, and take the lead.

“I knew I was supposed to do something solo. I prayed about it,” said Smith, who consulted his godfather, Bishop Gerald Coleman Sr., senior pastor of Faith Keepers Ministries in the Raleigh/Frayser community.

“He told me to stick with God, listen to God’s voice, and that I should be fine,” said Smith.

Following that course, Smith came upon a green light that led him to make the move to the next phase of his life as JROQSOL.

A‘fresh face’ with lots of color is the new trend this summer

       

Celebrity makeup artist and esthetician Ariel Sereika (left) and Armando Ramos,
national makeup artist for Yves Saint Laurent, tag team to give Yaneth Vianheider
the perfect look. (Photos: Wiley Henry)

       Applying makeup is a daily routine for women like Loretta McNary, who use beauty treatments to bring out their best features – foundation, eye shadow, eyeliner, lipstick, mascara, etc. But not all women get it right.

       “Makeup is supposed to enhance your beauty and not take away from it. We tend to overdo the colors. If all you see is makeup, you can’t see the person,” said McNary, host of The Loretta McNary TV Show on Comcast.

McNary picked up a few makeup tips at a women’s event in February from celebrity makeup artist and esthetician Ariel Sereika, a Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) representative in Memphis. She’d gotten her makeup done by Sereika and was thoroughly impressed with the results.

       “Ariel nailed it. She got it perfect for me,” said McNary, who paid Sereika another visit on March19 after receiving an invitation to attend a beauty event at Macy’s Carriage Crossing in Collierville, featuring Armando Ramos, a national makeup artist for YSL.

James Sanderson, a makeup artist for Yves Saint Laurent,
gives talk show host Loretta McNary the star treatment to
enhance her appearance.

“I wanted to see what’s new, the latest trends, and how to properly apply eye makeup,” said McNary, trying to keep current with YSL’s product line. “If you watch the makeup artists do it, you can learn the technique.”

       This time she brought along three of her nieces – Jorden Moore, 12, Rosalyn Parker, 11, and Destiny Thomas, 6. She wanted to introduce them to the industry and experience for themselves a makeup job by some of YSL’s best.

       From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Ramos and the team from YSL painted, powdered and brushed away any inhibitions the women – and the girls, for that matter – may have felt. They sat no more than 20 minutes and emerged with a smile.  

       “We’re all about beauty and makeup, because Yves Saint Laurent was all about women being beautiful,” said Susan Anderson, an account executive for YSL’s International Designers Collection. “This makeup is special, because it has the science behind the treatment.”

       YSL has a wide color palette for all ethnicities, said Anderson, a resident of Little Rock who travels frequently to promote the brand.

       “It works for all skin types,” Sereika added. “We not only do color… we do clothing, handbags and jewelry. We’re trying to keep Yves Saint Laurent’s legacy going … in the Macy’s store. And we’re very proud of what we’re doing.”

       Born in Algeria, Yves Saint Laurent was arguably one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century. He rose to fame after introducing the widely popular ready-to-wear (prêt-à-porter) concept in 1966 and set a standard for his trendsetting Le Smoking tailored tuxedos. He died in 2008.

       Ramos was in Memphis to introduce and celebrate YSL’s spring collection. “I’m here to talk about what’s hot, what trends – like what’s hot for the spring – the colors people are using, the cool techniques to complexions, and to get that real gorgeous summer glow to the skin,” he said.

Rosalyn Parker, a 5th grader at Willow Oaks Elementary,
sits patiently while makeup artist Kim Rase works her magic.
Rosalyn is the daughter of Shamika Parker.

       “I see the trend going to a fresh face, almost no makeup as far as the complexion is concerned –  dewey skin, healthy skin, youthful skin – and of course lots of color on the lips and lots of color on the eyelashes. We’re seeing very dramatic lips.”

       Ramos travels the country four days a week and makes personal appearances to YSL counters such as Macy’s, one of the brand’s most successful counters in the region. He also does online tutorials for YSL beauty and special events.

       “Out of all the products that I’ve used, Yves Saint Laurent really resonated because of the history of the brand. It has a lot of heritage to it,” said Ramos, who once toured with entertainers and bands doing their makeup. He also did makeup for the movie industry and runway shows before signing on with SYL.

       “I really fell in love with teaching women and giving them that everyday glamour,” he said. “It’s a very audacious brand. The women he (Laurent) dressed, he wanted to dress their faces as well.”

       Sereika has “dressed” a many faces while working in New York, San Francisco and Paris, France. She was the makeup artist for “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “The Today Show,” Max Factor, including a number of TV and movie sets, and special and private events.

        “As a makeup artist, I’ve been able to travel the world. I’ve worked with celebrities down to the little housewife,” she said.

       Ramos credits Sereika for YSL’s meteoric success at Macy’s. “She has one of the best businesses in the industry,” he said.

Single mothers brunch provides 'living' advice

 

Connie McCracklin, founder and CEO of S.C.R.A.M. (Stop Child Rape and
Molestation), urged mothers to get involved in their children's lives and to make
themselves available for them. (Photos: Wiley Henry)

   

     Wanda Taylor urged several dozen women attending a single mothers brunch Saturday morning (March 12) at Libertas School of Memphis to know their worth, expect the best and not settle for anything less.

“So many of us live our lives based on how we feel about ourselves and what someone thinks about us,” said Taylor, president/CEO of Ladies in Need Can Survive, Inc., a non-profit organization that transitions troubled women back into society.

Taylor was one of five community activists whose topics were specifically tailored for single mothers in need of information, opportunities and positive re-enforcement to survive in today’s society.

She talked about healthy versus unhealthy relationships and cited her troubled past as an example of misdirection and misguidance before turning her life over to God. She wanted the mothers to know that their lives, too, can be restored. 

Wanda Taylor, president/CEO of Ladies in Need Can
Survive, Inc., points heavenward to let attendees at the single
mothers brunch know that they are "a child of the King."

“You are a child of the King. You are His friend. You are loved, destined for greatness, and created with a purpose,” she said.

Sharon Fields, who raised three sons without their father, organized the brunch to kick off Mothers of Motivation (MOM), which she conceived as an outreach of Libertas. “It’s part of the school’s family enrichment piece,” she said.

Libertas is a non-profit Montessori school that was organized in 2015 by Bob Nardo, an educator who was born in New York and grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He is head of school, the equivalent of school principal.

Fields is the office manager and parent coordinator. Her passion for outreach prompted a move to form a support group for women whose experiences are similar to her own.

“I know what single mothers go through. They often don’t have support. It can be hectic and stressful,” said Fields, who found role models for her sons after she joined The Pursuit of God Transformation Center, a thriving church led by Apostle Ricky Floyd in the Frayser community.

“Apostle (Floyd) mentored my youngest son from the time he was seven to about 11,” she said. “He spent time over to the Floyd’s house. He’s like part of their family. And my other two sons were mentored by other men in the church.”

Although the brunch was set up for single mothers and facilitated by women, Floyd pitched in and offered a few points from a handout entitled “Discovering The Gold Within by Walking Your Goals Out.” He also used Scriptures to back his points up.

“You are what you think, feel say and do,” he began. “If I think it, I will feel it. If I feel it, I will say it. If I say it, my actions will correspond.”

Citing Romans 7:15 (NAS), he said: “For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”

Connie McCracklin focused on the children. Her topic, “Protecting Your Children Through Open Communication,” drew inquiry from several mothers.

“Most people are victimized by people they know. Check in on them (children). Make some noise. We got to get in their business. That’s another way to protect our children,” said McCracklin, founder and CEO of S.C.R.A.M. (Stop Child Rape and Molestation), a non-profit organization.

 “The best way to educate your child is to open up communications,” said McCracklin, who is raising five boys with her husband, Sylvester. “If you develop communications between you and your child, they won’t be afraid to talk to you about their body parts and when somebody is violating them.”

One mother sought answers to a problem she’s struggled with regarding her teenage daughter, who would withdraw when the subject of sex was brought up for discussion. She wanted to know how to break through her daughter’s wall of silence.

McCracklin urged her to try an alternative approach. Other mothers in the audience chimed in as well and offered varied suggestions – such as conferring with a school counselor.

Budgeting is just as important, said Maria L. Davis, particularly when household income is insufficient. She followed with a discussion to help mothers create a basic, personal budget plan to help them manage debt.

A confessed shopper, Davis advised mothers to resist the urge to over-shop, to restore their credit rating, keep good records, be frugal, if necessary, and don’t cosign for anyone.

“If you cosign, you’re responsible,” said Davis, a training professional at International Paper. 

Defending women’s rights

    Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA) has been in a defensive posture ever since a series of undercover videos surfaced in July that implied the health care provider is harvesting fetal body parts for profit.

PPFA is now fighting back. On Jan. 14, the nation’s leading provider of reproductive health care services for women filed a civil lawsuit in San Francisco against eight defendants PPFA deems responsible for secretly filming the five videos.

One of the defendants is David Daleiden, director of the nonprofit Center for Medical Progress (CMP), reportedly a “biomedicine” or “bioengineering” organization. On Jan. 25, a Houston grand jury indicted Daleiden for making false claims in the videos. He’s now facing a felony charge for tampering with a governmental record and a misdemeanor count in connection with buying human tissue. 

The grand jury had initially investigated accusations of criminal misconduct against Planned Parenthood but pivoted to investigate Daleiden and one of his employees, Sandra Merritt, who also was indicted on a charge of tampering with a governmental record.

Ashley B. Coffield

Ashley B. Coffield, president and CEO of the nonprofit Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region (PPGMR), one of 60 independent affiliates operating nearly 700 health care centers in the United States, said Daleiden and other anti-abortionists spewed lies and misinformation to distract people from their real goal, “which is to end the right to safe and legal abortion in the United States.”

 “The videos were an effort on behalf of anti-abortion extremists in our country to tell lies about Planned Parenthood [and] to distort the truth with the purpose of ending a 100-year-old organization in this country that provides compassionate care for women,” Coffield said.

All seven affiliates in California are plaintiffs in the lawsuit – PPGMR is not included – which seeks restitution of actual damages, compensatory and punitive damages, and triple damages for violations under the civil RICO (Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization) act, as well as attorneys’ fees.

The lawsuit charges that the “nonprofit” CMP attempted to show PPFA representatives in a criminal act of discussing fetal tissue procurement for stem cell researchers and “that its doctors follow an abortion procedure that violates the so-called ‘partial birth’ abortion ban.”

Coffield is angry that anti-abortionists would have the gall to infiltrate Planned Parenthood, use fake IDs and false business documents and create a “fraudulent” narrative in order “to present information that wasn’t accurate.”

“I’m also sad about the physicians who were in the videos and how their security was placed at risk by filming them without their consent,” she said, “and by editing the things that they said to make them appear to be engaging in something that was wrong.”

Rabbi Micah Greenstein, the Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel – the oldest and largest Jewish congregation in Tennessee – called the videos “dangerous.” They jeopardize the health of millions of women in the United States, he said.

“That fabricated video[s] may have been a political stunt, but it’s not funny when lives are at stake. In this case, it’s the lives of millions of women who depend on Planned Parenthood for their health care.”

The videos ignited a firestorm that permeated mainstream media, which led to several state investigations and four congressional committees investigations that were spearheaded by members of the House and Senate – many of them Republicans – who have since called for Planned Parenthood to be defunded.

If the politicians at both state and federal levels succeed in defunding Planned Parenthood, the affiliates would be ineligible for reimbursement for services they provide to patients enrolled in federal health care programs, such as Medicaid, which is called TennCare in Tennessee.  

“It’s a moral outrage that Planned Parenthood is under attack,” said Greenstein. “Not a dime should be cut from funding breast cancer screenings, Pap smears and other [services]. It’s easy to try to stop legal abortion. It’s harder to face the truth that Planned Parenthood is fundamentally about health care for women, women who don’t have what the people who are attacking Planned Parenthood have – basic health care.”

U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), representing the 7^th District of Tennessee, doesn’t see it that way. In the “Blackburn Report,” for example, she stated that “new documentation of the heinous practice of harvesting the body parts of babies as part of the abortion process have raised serious questions about the possible systematic and repeated violation of state and federal laws.”

“The fact that of the 700 health care centers, only six gave mothers who terminated their pregnancy the choice of using the fetal tissue for research to prevent future diseases and other tragedies,” said Greenstein, referring to the health centers that had actually been involved with fetal tissue research.

“We’re talking less than 1 percent,” he said.

Blackburn, who is vice chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, led a floor debate on H.R. 3134 – the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015 – that passed the House 241-187. State Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) introduced the bill, which would impose a one-year moratorium on all federal funding to Planned Parenthood and its affiliates while investigations are being conducted unless the health care provider certifies it will not perform abortions or provide funds to other entities that perform them. Restrictions apply in cases of rape, incest or a woman’s health concerns.

There have been at least 11 attempts in the House to defund Planned Parenthood. Ninth District Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), a ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, and Blackburn’s counterpart in the House, voted “no” each time.

During a hearing in September, for example, Cohen used the bully pulpit to speak out against dogged efforts by anti-abortion extremists to defund Planned Parenthood in response to “several heavily edited and discredited videos....”

“Today’s hearing is another effort in a long-running and sustained campaign to restrict women’s constitutional rights,” Cohen sounded off. “It’s showboating for a political base that won’t be happy until Planned Parenthood is shut down.”

Cohen noted with enthusiasm the services that Planned Parenthood provides when he helped the affiliate here to secure federal funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2012 ($395,000) and 2013 ($265,000). He vowed to stand with women to make sure their right to reproductive choice is protected.  

On the Senate side, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and U.S. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) jumped into the fray and co-sponsored S.1881, a bill that Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) introduced that would redirect federal dollars currently allocated to Planned Parenthood centers in Tennessee to other health care centers providing services for women. The legislation failed to garner the necessary votes (47-52) to advance.

The videos and subsequent investigations prompted intense scrutiny against Planned Parenthood and generated persistent media attention. But there is no evidence of the onslaught having a negative effect on the health care provider.

However, in spite of ongoing investigations, some talking heads on TV and in print media have reported that the videos contradict the allegations against Planned Parenthood based on results from forensic analysis.  

Even after the indictment of Daleiden, Planned Parenthood is fighting back to restore its reputation and validity as a bona fide health care provider for women. PPGMR is doing its part too on the local level all the while anti-abortionists parade outside PPGMR’s facility on Poplar Avenue with picket signs.

The debate continues to rage – whether Planned Parenthood should continue to operate as usual or be stripped of federal funds. And anger is seething as well. For example, a disturbed gunman in November attacked Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado Springs and left three dead and others wounded. 

Coffield is keenly aware of the hostility and the potential for violence against Planned Parenthood and its patients. But that hasn’t stopped her from carrying out PPGMR’s mission: “to improve health and well-being by providing high-quality, non-judgmental sexual health care, honest and accurate sexuality education, and reproductive health and rights advocacy.”     

“For our community to lose a health care provider that focuses on contraception and well-woman care, and cancer screening and STI (Sexually Transmitted Infections) testing, and treatment and access to abortion would be a tragedy,” she said.

AT A GLANCE:

Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region (PPGMR) supplied the following information and data to justify the need for its myriad services:

• Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. serves 2.7 million patients annually. Cecile Richards is the president.

• The number of patients served at PPGMR is 9,000 of 13,000 visits annually.

• PPGMR is nearly 75 years old and serves patients in West Tennessee, North Mississippi and East Arkansas. At least 65 percent of those served are from the Memphis area.

• Planned Parenthood’s education and outreach programs reach 1.5 million people each year – 1,500 of them in Memphis alone.

• PPGMR utilizes dozens of “sex-perts” on college campuses and a comprehensive sexual education program (JustUs) for middle school and high school students.

• PPGMR issued 650,000 condoms, and other safer-sex products were distributed through its “Free Condom Memphis” program last year.

• Six million people visit Planned Parenthood websites each month for health care information.

• PPGMR accepts commercial insurance and TennCare for its services. A 40 percent discount is offered to patients without insurance. Teens 18 and under are free for some services.

• 50 percent of PPGMR’s revenue comes from patient fees, 25 percent from donors, 22 percent from insurance, and about 3 percent from government grants.