As the 2023-2024 academic year ends, Students for Life of America (SFLA) will be awarding groups with Best New Group, Best High School Group, Best College Group, and Best Standing With You Group distinctions – and you get to help us choose which groups deserve these awards. Our Lady of Guadalupe’s Students for Life in Raleigh, North Carolina, was for Best New Group of the Year. Learn more about this group below and decide whether they’ll receive your vote:   

Our Lady of Guadalupe’s Students for Life is a new SFLA group started in September 2023 and is composed of young pro-life individuals from all over the greater Raleigh area. This group humbly began with a handful of passionate homeschooled students and has since exploded to over 54 student members, including not only homeschooled students but also those from local public, private, and Catholic schools. This group’s passion and commitment to life, love, and truth has set the greater Raleigh area ablaze, and their fire for life continues to attract new members and impact the pro-life movement in the area.  

The group is dedicated to educating, recruiting, and mobilizing local youth to become active members of the Pro-Life Generation through regular tabling at area churches, speaking at youth groups, advertising in bulletins, appearing on local Catholic radio stations, and partnering with Respect Life ministries at local churches. While each of these actions is an impressive feat for such young students, their partnership with several churches’ Respect Life Committees deserves a highlight. 

These partnerships enabled the students to foster supportive and vital relationships with pro-life leaders in the greater Raleigh area, benefiting them from invaluable training and mentorship. These partnerships also allowed the students incredible opportunities to reach, educate, and serve these churches and their parishioners. These students have successfully implemented pro-life educational programs for young children, helped serve and run service projects that benefit pregnant mothers and pro-life pregnancy centers, stood as witnesses for life through their presence and prayer outside of abortion clinics, tabled at various festivals to educate teenagers and adults about SFLA, and been the recipients of education through incredible events including a talk from and reception with the President of March for Life, Jeanne Mancini.  

With a particular focus on and passion for changing minds and hearts through education, this group started their first year partnering with a local church to host a large Pumpkin Patch for Life to teach young children the value and dignity of even the smallest life within the womb. They’ve continued their mission of education by helping create and prepare the Through His Eyes program, an original six-week program designed to teach the value and dignity of human life from ages five to 11. Our Lady of Guadalupe’s Students for Life mentored youth in the Through His Eyes program, engaging them in age-appropriate service projects for life, including a Run for Life and a St. Gianna Molla (Patron Saint of the Unborn) Tea Party.  

While the traditional school year is ending, Our Lady of Guadalupe’s Students for Life has only begun. These students have an exciting Summer for Life Series lined up for their current and new members. This summer, members will receive pro-life apologetics training through area professionals, attend group exclusive talks by local pro-life leaders to include NC Rite to Life, participate in our Summer Pro-Life Book club, and be witnesses to love and life through targeted activism and political campaigning. This creative and impactful Summer for Life series will set the group up for a successful second year of fighting for and loving life.  

This group is on fire. Their passionate commitment to ending abortion and valuing all life is setting the greater Raleigh area ablaze. It’s amazing to see such love and action from young activists. 

Our Lady of Guadalupe’s Students for Life’s passion and work cannot be fully expressed in one article. If you’d like to learn what they’ve been doing this year and what they’ve got planned for the upcoming year, please visit their website at https://www.ncprolifeteens.org.