Infant shirts, pants and dresses littered the Pi Beta Phi house Monday night.
Unlike what many girls' dressing rooms and bedrooms look like before they go out for the evening, the sorority house was full of baby clothes because they hosted a shower for Baby Boutique, a local service clinic.
"(University Medical Center) owns Grand Expectations, which just started a program called Baby Boutique," said Kobi Nix, a senior public relations major from Midland. "Mothers get rewarded with new baby clothes for making healthy choices."
Nix said the sorority wanted to make the event Greek-wide, so they incorporated a baby shower theme. The Greek sorority system was able to collect 296 baby outfits and 50 children's books for the program.
Anne Fisk, the director of Grand Expectations clinic, said the clinic provides all services for free and is completely dependent on donations. Any donations can be taken to the clinic at 2602 Avenue Q Monday through Friday during normal business hours.
"The shower is about getting funding for the program," Fisk said. "I'm just overwhelmed. This is incredible. This is the first shower our program had."
Fisk said the clinic helps single mothers qualify for Medicaid and also does sexually transmitted disease testing for free.
"Lubbock has the highest rates of Chlamydia and teen pregnancy in the nation," Fisk said. "Sometimes, I feel we're not even making a dent. Education is everything."
The sorority's philanthropy focus is on literacy, therefore girls were asked to bring baby and educational books in addition to baby outfits.
"Lots of times, out of financial necessity, books are the last thing these mothers are going to buy," Fisk said. "Education is the only way out, to stop the cycle. Giving literacy is just as important as getting the clothes."
She said the Baby Boutique program is 14 months old, and thus far has been a successful reward program that keeps 1,200 young mothers going to their doctor appointments and not using drugs, tobacco and alcohol.
"The underserved girls of Lubbock are encouraged to do healthy things throughout their pregnancy, for keeping a healthy, active lifestyle," Fisk said. "They are so excited when they can come pick out outfits -brand new outfits for their baby."
Lauren Abell, a junior public relations major from Lubbock, brought two garments to donate at the shower.
"We really just encouraged the girls to support this organization because it is such a good cause," Abell said. "Kobi (Nix) called all the sororities and the response from the Greek system together is amazing."
She said the sorority had never done a clothes drive and it was neat to do something different for the community.
"Being from Lubbock, I want to see the young girls in the program, the young girls of our community benefit from this clinic and from the support of other young women," Abell said. "Anything we can do to help the community is important. We want the girls to know that other people are out there that want to help their situation."
Anyone wanting more information on the program can call Anne Fisk at (806) 761-0611.
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