Second annual Mardi Gras Ball for Life to benefit Cape Girardeau maternity home

Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri (CCSOMO) will have its second annual Mardi Gras Ball for Life on Saturday, Feb. 18, at Drury Conference Center in Cape Girardeau.

The event will start at 6 p.m. Activities for the night include dinner, Mardi Gras festivities and dancing to live music from a nine-piece St. Louis band, Spectrum. Throughout the night there will be several raffles, including a chance to win a week at Wilderness Club at Big Cedar in Ridgedale, Missouri, near Branson. Raffle tickets are $25 for one or five for $100, the winner of this raffle does have to be present to win.

There will also be raffles for a Louis Vuitton purse valued at more than $2,000; only 75 raffle tickets will be sold for this item; price is $100, and the winner will need to be present.

Along with raffles, dancing and dinner, there will be voting for a Mardi Gras king at the start of the event. Candidates are Tyler Cuba, Lucas Presson and Chris Janet. Candidates are picked by invitation. To learn more about each man, see the individual biographies on the CCSOMO website. Cost is $20 per vote.

This annual event supports LifeHouse Crisis Maternity Home in Cape Girardeau, a program of Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri. Last year, the funding was to help furnish the rooms women and children will stay in. This year's fundraising amount will go toward the education of the women who will live in the home.

LifeHouse is a crisis maternity house that will shelter up to 15 women at a time. It is a place for homeless pregnant women older than 18 who have chosen to better themselves for a healthy pregnancy and start a brighter future. Women can come and stay at this facility for up to a year after their baby is born.

Women who come into this facility have access to prenatal care, nurses, counselors, shelter, post-delivery care and general health education for both themselves and their baby.

According to Rick Cuba, a board member of the project, the women who come to the shelter will get their GED if they do not have it and will work to have money after they leave to live on their own. The women are required to save 70% of everything they make so that at the end of the program they will have money to rent apartments, pay for utilities and be successful in an employed situation.

This type of program has been ongoing in Springfield, Missouri, and has a nine year success rate.

"The women have graduated from the program and are in all kinds of positions in the Springfield area as well as office workers and receptionists, and some have gone into nursing and other health care professions and are being quite successful," Cuba said. "There have been 118 babies born in Springfield without any of them having had to have NICU stays or have had health problems. It's breaking the cycle of poverty for these women and giving the women and their children a chance to have a very healthy and successful life."

While women are in this program, Cuba said that he has had a number of employers interested in having them work there during their stay.

"The women have to sign when they come into the home nine pages of expectations and abide by those expectations and rules. So it is a program that is transformational," Cuba said. "It is not something that's just they're allowed to be on their own, and for that reason, the building itself has very many security-ish things built into it."

The building will have many security features built into it for the safety of the women and children. There will be a secure play area that is built for the children, as well as 24/7 security for the safety of those inside.

"This is not in competition with anything else that is serving women, you know, like a safe house," Cuba said. "It is an extension of services to the women that need those kinds of things, and that's presently not available in this community.

Fundraising for the facility began in February 2020, but because of COVID was set back. The efforts to bring LifeHouse to Cape Girardeau has been ongoing since 2018.

LifeHouse Cape Girardeau, 535 Main St., is projected to open and start receiving clients in February 2024.

For more information about the Mardi Gras King candidates or to buy raffle tickets for the event, go to www.ccsomo.org/2023-mardi-gras-ball.html.