After 22 years in Lewiston, the world beckons the Willsons.

She hadn’t been ready for a baby or her parents’ rules.

At 19, Virginia Pray ran away from home with her 18-month-old son and moved in with a Lewiston man she met online.

He lived across the street from Hope House, a former church on College Street with hand-drawn signs advertising help for single moms. The sign, it turned out, she needed.

Temporarily, Pray gave her son back to her mom. She lost the guy, moved into a Hope House apartment and got her life together. She and the toddler lived there for a year.

“That’s definitely a godsend that I happened to run away across the street from the center that was going to help me,” she said.

For 22 years, Hope House has helped thousands of women with parenting classes, support groups, a free store and at times, even housing. Founders Bruce and Jan Willson are its only employees, a term used somewhat loosely. There isn’t much money in helping sometimes scared, sometimes lonely, sometimes desperate single moms.

What money there is has gotten tighter. This winter, the Willsons will close the two Hope House buildings on College Street for longer than normal and reassess what’s to become of the charity. If donations increase – they’re short $4,500 a month – the programs and those buildings will continue. If not, it may have to find other space, and maybe even other day-to-day leaders.

‘That first night, we had 60 moms line up ‘

At Hope House’s annual Thanksgiving potluck last week, tables adorned with pumpkins and Indian corn took up space where church pews once sat. As Bruce Willson predicted, by the time his wife took to the former pulpit to lead a Thanksgiving song, all 84 seats were full. There were lots of moms, lots of kids and a few fathers.

In 1986, the Willsons started taking as many as three pregnant girls at a time into their Mechanic Falls home under a foster care license. Sometimes girls stayed after their babies’ birth.

Back then, that felt like a full house.

“I can remember with our four kids and their kids, I just have to laugh. I didn’t know how full it would get at Thanksgiving,” Jan said, surveying the room.

As Christians who oppose abortion, Bruce said Hope House started because he and Jan were bothered by messages in the pro-life movement.

“It’s more pro-birth, as soon as the baby’s born they kind of back away,” he said. The couple decided to do something different: If moms could make the commitment, have the baby, they deserved a hand.

A single mother support group started in their living room. By 1994, Hope House expanded to Lewiston.

“We had no idea what a crowd we would draw. The first night we had 60 moms lined up on the porch,” Jan said.

Now at the former church at 91 College St. they offer Monday and Wednesday parenting and support groups, a library and a thrift store that takes “Mommy Money” earned by every hour of class time. At 87 College St.: A health center with free pregnancy tests and prenatal care.

About 600 women come through every year, half of them first-timers. The youngest client was 11.

Weekly parenting classes cover everything from nutrition to citizenship. Recently, nursing students were in sharing charts on how many layers of clothes to dress a baby depending on the temperature outside.

Gail Ruttenberg of Auburn, a retired nurse, stayed in the kitchen picking turkey off the birds before the big potluck meal. She’s volunteered at Hope House for six years.

Someone recently gave birth and heeded her advice: Don’t go to the hospital too early. Sometimes it’s not true labor and they’ll send you right home.

“She went in when she was 7 cm dilated – that we love,” Ruttenberg said. “First baby, she did very, very well.”

Volunteers teach, act as “court buddies” in the legal system and sometimes mentor moms who are trying to keep the state from assuming custody of their children or trying to win them back.

Linda Bailey of Minot, a volunteer in the kitchen with Ruttenberg, said she can understand that maybe it’s time for someone, or lots of someones, to step up and take over for the Willsons. She can understand their desire to try something new.

“Bruce and Jan have such love and compassion, they pour out of themselves and you think they don’t have anything more to give,” she said.

‘Work is not winding down’

Both Lewiston buildings are owned by St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, given to Hope House for free as long as they are heated and maintained. But those costs have mounted. A letter went out to supporters last week outlining their dilemma. One building needs a new furnace. Someone has already come forward offering to match $6,000 for that.

After their Dec. 15 holiday party, Bruce said the buildings will be temporarily shuttered until April.

That’s time to “give the supporters and give God a chance to move on people. If not, we’ll kind of revamp,” Bruce said.

That may mean asking area churches for space or renting halls for big events. Their Mechanic Falls home will remain open, but that’s out of the way. Most of the moms walk.

“I would have hoped that the community would have owned it more by now,” said Jan. “We still struggle every month. The work is not winding down at all. I can’t believe it’s supposed to end.”

But at the same time they’re contemplating the future here, the Willsons are also hearing an international call.

The Happy Mom & Baby Center opened in Korea this year, the first international group they’re aware of to at least partly pattern itself after Lewiston’s Hope House. More opportunities may await.

The Willson family went to China last summer, in the form of a traveling band, and sang and made what could be future connections for outreach. The Korea center came about after making connections during their son’s Korean wedding two years ago.

The couple, both in their 50s, has recently been invited to Africa to speak on the Hope House model.

“There’s just a world of need out there. I don’t know where it’s going to take us,” Jan said.

Word of potential changes in the future has just started to get out among the volunteers.

Sally Lessard of Turner discovered Hope House 10 years ago during a difficult pregnancy. Bedridden, she had already lost one of the twins she was carrying.

“I didn’t have a car seat, I didn’t have anything. I wasn’t getting any help. They showed up at the hospital with a car seat for me and lots of smiles,” Lessard said.

“I think this place is great. I was just talking to someone out there, they didn’t know what they’d do if this place wasn’t here.”

Pray, 26, now married with a second son, also became a regular volunteer.

“It’s a lot of learning. It’s a lot of knowing you’re not the only one going through those problems,” she said.

“If it weren’t for this place, I wouldn’t have my son. I wouldn’t have cleaned up my act at all.”