By Emily Chaffins -

Photography: EMILY CHAFFINS | FC

MIAMI | Despite heavy rains in the area, the sun shone on the grassy outdoor altar area of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish May 21, 2023, glinting off the tops of the tents of the artists and organizations setting up for the Life Collective pro-life art exhibition.

The festival-style Life Collective featured live music and speakers, artists and organizations selling artwork while promoting their pro-life mission. The $1,767 raised — through the sale of foods such as lechon, churros and Alfajores cookies, a raffle, and the purchase of baby items through an Amazon Baby Registry — went to the Archdiocese of Miami Pregnancy Help Centers.

Life Collective was spearheaded by Grace Chaffins, president of Students for Life at FIU, the Florida International University chapter of the national pro-life student organization. Its goal is to support women in crisis and to educate peers. (Editor's note: The author, Emily Chaffins, and the event organizer, Grace Chaffins, are sisters.)

Chaffins organized Life Collective as her project for this year’s Students for Life’s Hildegard Art Fellowship, a program named after St. Hildegard of Bingen to empower pro-life artists to serve their communities through art.

An array of artists in genres including painting, music, photography, writing, and fine paper goods participated. Event sponsors included Our Lady of Lourdes Council of Catholic Women, who prepared and sold the food, and the Knights of Columbus.

“My favorite part is supporting local artists,” said attendee Adrianne Camero. “They deserve their own spotlight.”

Camero is a family friend of Camilla Griffith, an artist who sold prints and merchandise at the event. Griffith is the artist behind the company Art Redemption.

“It’s Camilla’s first art presentation, so it’s a big thing for us,” Camero said.

Archbishop Coleman Carroll High School’s Art Club and Honor Society created a special pro-life art exhibition with the theme of Marian apparitions, selling prints of the students’ artwork.

Tim Vanscoy, a history teacher at the high school, said the Marian apparitions theme was chosen because “to honor the Immaculate Conception is to honor life itself.”

Katherine Hernandez and her husband, Alex, were on hand to promote the organization she founded, Our Lady of Good Help Fertility Care.

“We see fertility as a gift to be appreciated and treated, not a disease to be suppressed,” Katherine said.

“Through an appreciation of fertility, our goal is to deepen devotion to Mary,” Alex added, showing his handmade rosaries, which he makes through his organization, Champion Rosaries, for Our Lady of Good Help Fertility Care clients. The couple also handed out Miraculous Medals.

Katherine, who is pregnant herself, also performed, playing guitar and singing pro-life music that she wrote.

Event attendees came from Miami-Dade and Broward, representing parishes such as Our Lady of Lourdes, Good Shepherd, Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Thomas the Apostle, St. Louis, and St. Agatha in Miami, and St. John XXIII in Miramar.

“What I enjoyed most was that local organizations came, and artists that promote life and family in a very friendly and loving way,” said Rosa Maria Barbara from St. Thomas the Apostle. “I also liked that there were a lot of resources to get involved and... help out the mothers or someone at risk for abortion.”

One speaker at the event, Tewannah Aman, executive director of Broward Right to Life, helped to drive home the importance of supporting pregnancy help centers and women in crisis with her personal testimony as a woman who had an abortion.

At 18, she became pregnant as a result of “an unhealthy relationship,” Aman said. She was eager for motherhood, as it was her lifelong dream to have children. “I wanted the baby.”

However, a trusted friend instilled fear into her and convinced her to have an abortion, even offering to pay for it.

“Here I am, eighteen, I’m not getting counseled about hope,” Aman said. “That’s why pregnancy centers and the work we do is so valuable and important, because we’re giving hope to individuals – because you see, God can redeem the worst situation. God can redeem the worst-case scenario. But if you only look at your circumstances, you are going to feel defeated, because your circumstances can look bad at that time. See, the hope is in Jesus, that he can redeem and turn around any circumstance.”

Aman said the abortion center did not explain what happens during the procedure. She was never given the opportunity to speak to a doctor. They made her sign a release form without explaining it to her – a release form, she learned years later to her shock, that stated that sterility is a possible result of abortion.

“And what’s sad about my story is I’ve counseled thousands of women in the over twenty-two years I’ve been doing this that have given me the same scenario: I didn’t know, I didn’t understand,” Aman said.

Aman said she shares her story and works hard today to help women in crisis so they won’t have to go through the same pain – not only the loss of her first child to abortion, but also a miscarriage and inability to have children, likely due to the abortion she had as a teenager.

“I call us lifeguards because we bring life to a very dark situation,” Aman said. 

Other speakers at the event were Belkys Rodriguez, assistant director of the archdiocese’s Respect Life ministry and Mackenzie Fraser, South Broward program coordinator for the ministry. They spoke about the organization’s origins and services to women in crisis and their families.

Respect Life’s Pregnancy Help centers served 2,450 clients in 2022. The centers provide financial and material assistance from pregnancy until the child turns two years old, Earn While You Learn classes (in pre-natal care and parenting for both mothers and fathers), counseling, pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, information and referrals, and post-abortion healing. 

To donate baby items to the Archdiocese of Miami pregnancy help centers, please visit the Amazon Baby Registry at http://tinyurl.com/2p87n5.