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The Care Net Pregnancy Resource Center of Chilton County received a new ultrasound machine thanks to a partnership with the Knights of Columbus.

“We needed a new machine because the old one was 10 years old and technology changes fast,” Chilton County Care Net Director Ashley Liveoak said.

Liveoak searched around for organizations that could offer a grant to help pay for a new machine.

According to Liveoak, she was beginning to get discouraged after being turned away by several organizations.

Eventually, she reached out to the Knights of Columbus at the national level, who quickly reached out to the state level.

That is when the Knights of Columbus stepped in and offered to do what it could to help the cause by purchasing a new ultrasound machine for $27,000 and donating it to the facility.

“All I did was pick up the phone, and God opened every door for us to get this machine,” Liveoak said. “It was a sign from God.”

The Knights of Columbus was founded in 1882 as a global Catholic charitable organization.

According to George Vernon Gentle, state life director with the Knights of Columbus, despite Catholics only making up less than 10% of Alabama’s pollution, the Care Net ultrasound machine will be 35 machines that they have donated across the state in recent years and a little more than 1,100 across the world.

“It’s going to save lives,” Gentle said. “We have one machine in Birmingham that sees 1,100 clients a year, and they are able to save 80-90% of the children.”

Once the money was in place, it took about a month to get the machine ordered and delivered.

Care Net is an organization that focuses on providing resources to pregnant women and making sure they know all of their available options other than abortion.

According to Liveoak, the ultrasound machine will play an instrumental role in helping decrease the number of expected mothers who choose to have an abortion.

“We are here to let it be a window to the womb, and to save any babies where their moms might be abortion-vulnerable,” Liveoak said. “Statistics show that if a mother sees the baby in the womb, they are 80% more likely to choose life.”

The ultrasound machine the facility had been using will be sent to a medical clinic in Haiti to further assist doctors and pregnant women in the country through a partnership with Children’s Hope ministry in Montgomery.