Thanks for all the love tonight! loving #TurnToYou & all the support savebethesda.org #savebethesda
— Pattie Mallette (@pattiemallette) May 11, 2012
The Bethesda Centre is a Salvation Army-run facility for teenage mothers that provides pre-natal care and daycare, as well as other supports. Following an announcement on Feb. 1 that the centre’s doors would close on June 30, the community banded together to form the Help Save Bethesda committee, which then lobbied the Army to give residents a chance to raise necessary funds to keep the facility open.
Early March, the committee was granted its wish — a deadline of May 31 to raise $1.5 million was offered by the Salvation Army. To date, just over $103,000 of the total goal has been raised.
Pattie was living in Bethesda when she was pregnant with Justin. She probably went there for help considering she was only 16 years old. Now the centre has to raise another $1.4 million in the next 20 days or risk closing because the Salvation Army can’t afford to keep it open. And Justin is trying to help them by raising money through his single he wrote for his mom “Turn To You” that was just released.
Hopefully there’s enough time. You can help contribute by either buying the single here or directly donating to the centre here.
Rare picture of Justin when he was just born in 1994 with Pattie and Jeremy
