Shelley Boyes, like many others, had experienced great loss and turned that hardship into something wonderful. The Choose Life Ministry was created to help young women from age 18-29 with their struggles.

"Choose Life Ministry was something that was started in February 2012," says Shelley Boyes, Executive Director of Choose Life Ministry. "The mission behind the ministry is to help young women who are struggling with life controlling issues, it could be anything from abuse of drugs and alcohol to an eating disorder, severe depression, trouble with anxiety those kinds of things."

While the program is being brought to reality the ministry has been given a vacant house in the town of Gainsborough to use in the meantime. The house allows for 6 women to start the program.


"Our program is now open and accepting applications and welcoming our first residents into the home, after five and a half years of planning," says Boyes. "So they come and they stay in residence with us for 6 months at a time and we help them work through the issues that they're dealing with."

A plot of land was donated to the ministry and the original plan was to start from scratch on a new building, however, there was a stone building right on the donated property that was in very good shape. The ministry is now renovating the building which will save time and resources. The goal is to get this building functional as soon as possible to allow more women, up to 20, into the program at a time with their well-rounded program.

stonehouse

Photo of stone house on donated property, courtesy Shelley Boyes.

"We do not charge the residents anything to come to the program," says Boyes. "So we offer counseling both individual and group counseling. There is a fitness component to the program, there is education if girls have not finished their grade twelve they would be able to get a GED."

The program already has their 24-hour a day staffing in place but are always in need of donations. Shopping at the Second Chance Thrift Stores, located in Weyburn, Estevan and Carlyle is a great way to help this cause.


"Everything that we do is funded by private donation and fundraising and that type of thing," says Boyes. "So one of the things that we have come up with is the idea of the second chance thrift stores all of the income generated from those thrift stores goes to provide funding for our ministry and for helping with our programming for these young girls."

If you want to learn more about the Choose Life Ministry visit their website.