About Us
The vision has become a reality!
When
you say you have a vision, some folks tend to wonder what you mean.
Marion County Commissioner Randy Harris was driving behind a vehicle
with a specialty license plate, when he envisioned a Choose Life
specialty license plate. The year was 1996, the city was Ocala, Florida
and the seeds of Florida's 51st specialty license plate and a national
movement were sown. They took several months to "sprout" and early in
1997 Randy began to pull together his team and Choose Life, Inc.
was formed. The Marion County Commission unanimously approved a
resolution calling on the Florida Legislature to approve the Choose Life specialty plate.
Now many years and thousands of volunteer hours later, we have America's first first official license plate designed to encourage women with unplanned pregnancies to consider adoption as a choice.
Choose
Life, Inc. was formed in Florida in 1996 with the idea to use license
plate sales to help fund efforts for pre-natal care for women
considering adoption services and to help pro-life pregnancy centers and
other life affirming agencies get services to women who needed
them. Initial efforts were difficult, but through persistence,
legislators in Florida were convinced to support the effort. In 1997,
the Florida legislature presented then-governor Lawton Chiles with the
Choose Life bill. Amid national attention and some controversy, Governor
Chiles vetoed the Choose Life plate. Even though Chiles vetoed the
Florida plate, it caught the attention of pro-life advocates in other
states. By summer 1998, Choose Life, Inc. had been contacted and asked
to help promote similar efforts outside of Florida as well. So, in
1998, Choose Life was promoting not only legislation in Florida to get
the Florida Choose Life plate enacted, but also helping groups in other
states set up their own Choose Life license plate efforts.
In
2000, Florida passed the Choose Life plate. This was a great victory
for Choose Life. But then the Florida effort shifted to promoting plate
sales and helping pregnancy centers and adoption services fulfill the
law’s administrative requirements so they could get the funds. For the
next eleven years, Choose Life as one non-profit entity found itself
involved in a great deal of work:
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