August 28th, 2012

Categories: Funds, Pro-Choice Resources

The last few weeks of summer means State Fair season around the country -- corn dogs, crop art, and in Minnesota, at least, condoms-on-a-stick!

That's right: for the last four decades, Pro-Choice Resources (home to the Hersey Abortion Assistance Fund, one of the Network's founding members) has had a booth at the Minnesota State Fair, where their crew of volunteers greets fairgoers alongside vendors selling funnel cakes, cheese curds, and local crafts in the bustling grandstand.

Pro-Choice Resources is the ONLY pro-choice organization at the Fair.

More than a million people will visit the fairgrounds during the12-day festival, and in addition to offering brochures on fostering healthy relationships, preventing unintended pregnancy, and getting help from the Hersey Abortion Assistance Fund, Pro-Choice Resources gives away about 7,000 condoms-on-a-stick at the Fair each year.

“Every year some of the same grandmothers stop by our booth just to get condoms-on-a-stick. They make for wildly popular and unusual items in care packages," notes Karen Law, one of our newest Board Members and the Executive Director of Pro-Choice Resources.

The State Fair is a great place to raise awareness, too -- last year, Pro-Choice Resources collected petition signatures at the Fair, urging Minnesota's leaders to put a stop to bans on abortion coverage. The state legislature subsequently tried and failed to pass a constitutional amendment banning state Medicaid funding of abortion.