Project SIGHT History

Project SIGHT began as a local community effort to address the critical issue of teen pregnancy. In January of 1992, “Church Women United” (CWU) identified teen pregnancy prevention as a primary focus for its organization. CWU, a non-profit ecumenical group representing 13 area churches, approached the community, youth, medical, and church leaders associated with the Rice County Public Health Nursing Services Special Project and began seeking funds for local teen pregnancy prevention efforts. In December of 1992, the state legislature initiated the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Project of MN (TPPPMN) which funded six diverse pilot projects across the state, one of them being Project SIGHT. TPPPMN provided financial support to Project SIGHT until September of 1995. In 1996, Project SIGHT received the first ENABL (Education Now and Babies Later) grant. These funds continued until July of 2007. In 2005, Project SIGHT was awarded a grant from the Mardag Foundation allowing us to develop and implement the Comadres program, (a comprehensive sexuality education program offered to Hispanic students in Northfield and Faribault). When the funds from Mardag ended, Project SIGHT made the choice to include this program in our overall budget. The key to allowing this to happen has been because of the support received from United Way of both Northfield and Faribault. Since its inception, Project SIGHT has grown from a grass roots initiative to a community-based, comprehensive educational program and remains as the only teen pregnancy prevention program in Rice County.

The Story Behind Project SIGHT's Name...

The name SIGHT may seen like an odd name for a teen pregnancy prevention program. However, once you know its origins, it all makes sense. SIGHT - Strengthening Identity and Growing in Hope Together - was given to us by teen mothers. Although they believed that comprehensive sexuality education was essential to teen pregnancy prevention, these teen moms wanted us to remember that education alone wasn't enough. Teens needed more to make positive, healthy choices: they needed a strong identity and sense of self, to grow up with hope for the future and to accomplish this together with adults, not by adults.