The Pregnancy Care Center Board of Directors announced the addition of Cody High to the Pregnancy Care Center staff.

He will serve as co-director of Worth Waiting 4!. He is a native of the area – graduating from N.C. State University, where he was involved with Campus Crusade for Christ. He is married to Amanda Blanton High. Cody High began his journey with the abstinence-until-marriage program at the start of the 2012-2013 school year.

“Hiring a male educator advances the prevention education arm of our ministry to an entirely new level and will be a huge asset for families in our community,” said Kay F. Gurganus, PCC executive director. “Plus, our new vision for the development and implementation of an Independent Guys Club will become a reality. The Independent Guys Club will model the innovative strategies of our extremely successful Independent Girls Club.”

The Independent Girls Clubs are small group sessions that take prevention to another level by building the character of middle school girls most at risk for teen pregnancy. Independent Girls Clubs groups have been held in each middle school in the Nash-Rocky Mount Public Schools System.

“My main goal is to be effective and intentional while investing everything I have in teaching young people within our community,” Cody High said. “My goal is to help teens build a moral and values-based foundation for effective decision-making regarding their future.”

Worth Waiting 4! Director Monica Weeks said administrators in Nash-Rocky Mount Public Schools”extended an invitation for the Independent Guys Club to be implemented in their middle schools.

“A few high schools have said they would give us additional classroom space to be able to separate the guys and girls during our presentation. The benefits of having a male role model are almost too large to measure. Imagine our community being impacted with lower dropout rates, lower numbers of families living in poverty, lower crime rates, less drug use and fewer cases of unplanned teenage pregnancy.”

According to national statistics from 2009-10, chlamydia rates for men aged 15-19 years increased 6 percent and gonorrhea rates increased 2.1 percent. In 2010, men aged 15-19 years had the second highest rate of gonorrhea.

“I know that through programs like WW4! and people like the staff at Pregnancy Care Center , we can make a lasting impression on people as they journey through life,” Cody High said.

Worth Waiting 4! – a program of the Pregnancy Care Center – is dedicated to the mission of motivating, educating and supporting generations of young people to choosing a lifestyle of sexual abstinence until marriage. This mission will be accomplished as the WW4! Program will offer both a male and a female instructor to all schools in our local area. During the 2012-13 school year, WW4! will make abstinence presentations to more than 4,000 teens in local schools, community groups and churches resulting in the equipping youth to make healthier choices. The Pregnancy Care Center seeks to assist individuals facing the challenges of unexpected pregnancy, to minister to the emotional and spiritual needs resulting from an abortion or miscarriage, and to promote sexual abstinence until marriage.