She did get to keep a proclamation from Mayor Kevin McKeehan making the day “Coralee Shearer Day” in Oxford as well as a commendation from the Ohio House of Representatives presented by State Rep. Tim Derickson.
Newcomer said the Oxford Women’s Care Center began in 1984 as the Pregnancy Care Center, “a ministry that supports life.” By 2012, however, the center was “in crisis and close to closing its doors forever.”
Shearer was president of the board at the time and stepped down in order to serve as interim director, approaching community businesses and organizations to gain support.
“We opened our doors not only to women in crisis with a pregnancy but also to assist pregnant women in need,” Newcomer said. “We help in the pregnancy and up to two-and-a-half years after the birth.”
She cited the Earn to Learn program in which women can earn points by watching parenting videos, volunteering, participating in the Oxford works program, getting financial counseling and other activities to teach them to raise happy, healthy children. At the end of the program they can use those points to obtain safe cribs and car seats for their child.
The center partnered with the Butler County Health Department.
“So began a new beginning,” Newcomer said.
The center moved from its High Street location last year to the Berean Bible Church on College Corner Pike when even the rent break on the High Street space was not enough.
“We had $137 left in our account,” Shearer recalled, adding she did not want turn it over to someone else in the midst of such chaos. “The board was so supportive of me and sort of gave me free rein. I told people what we do and they jumped on board.”
With the center’s operation at least stable at the Berean Church facility, Shearer took to driving all around the area looking for a building they might call their own and noticed the house on Reagh’s Way which had been built as a Habitat for Humanity project but had been abandoned and left in disrepair.
Not only had the home itself been poorly treated, the basement suffered from mold and mildew because the land sloped toward the house rather than away from it.
“Nobody wanted the house,” Shearer said. Habitat for Humanity could not find takers and she said she contacted Cincinnati Habitat which works with the Oxford chapter.
She said she would visit the site and simply walk around the grounds praying about it, deciding finally that if Habitat said they could have it for $30,000, it would be a sign that it was meant to be. She said she got a call after a meeting of Cincinnati Habitat that they would sell for $30,000.
“It builds your faith to watch God work,” she said.
It took a lot of volunteer help to get the house back into condition to use and they moved in last November. Shearer has since resigned as director and the current director Kim Taylor said Coralee and Bob Shearer financed the cost of the building, which she expects will be paid off in six years.
“Kim came on the scene a couple days before I left. This was probably the best two-and-a-half years I have lived in my life,” Shearer said. “I’m blessed to be a part of this.”
About the Author