At Buffalo Women Services, two women can enter the same building through different doors. One is there to experience the miracle of birth. Another is there to choose abortion.
Next door sits an empty parking lot. It has seen many businesses, gas stations, and more. Now it has been bought by Cheryl Calire, a lifelong pro-life advocate with a vision to park a Save the Storks Mobile Medical Clinic there. With pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, and compassionate care, the Mobile Medical Clinic would serve as a beacon of hope. For Cheryl, this vision is deeply personal.
Why an Ultrasound
What brought Cheryl into the pro-life movement was a pregnancy close to home.
Her teenage son’s girlfriend was expecting, and the girl’s parents had already decided the pregnancy would end. Suddenly Cheryl had to confront the beliefs she had always held about abortion in a deeply personal way.
“I was always of the belief that I would never do it, and I would never take somebody to terminate a pregnancy, and I would not pay for somebody to terminate a pregnancy. But who am I to judge? Everybody has a circumstance.
However, when all of a sudden you find out it’s your grandchild, that was a whole new series of thought processes for me. I was like, now I understand why Christ calls us to defend life.”
Cheryl asked the girl’s parents for one thing: permission to take her for a sonogram. They agreed. There, both of them saw her grandson sucking his thumb at 28 weeks.
Today her grandson is a 20-year-old college student. And Cheryl walked away from that experience with a new sense of purpose.
“From that moment on… I felt committed to give back. If this happened to me, it’s happening to other people,” says Cheryl.
She still gets invited to birthdays, baptisms, even graduations, of the children she has helped bring into the world.
Meeting Save the Storks
Cheryl went on to serve as the Director of the Office of Pro-Life Activities for the Diocese of Buffalo for 15 years, where she led and supported numerous ministries serving women, families, and those affected by abortion. In 2016, she founded the Mother Teresa Home, a residence for mothers facing unsupported pregnancies, which has served 105 mothers and 107 babies.
During those years, at a pro-life conference, she first saw a Save the Storks Mobile Medical Clinic.
Since her retirement in 2024, Cheryl has continued her work through Eternal Choice of Love, the pregnancy care center that is working to acquire a Mobile Medical Clinic.
Why This Parking Lot
Buffalo has a long history at the center of legal battles surrounding access to abortion clinics and demonstrations outside them. In Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York, a case that originated with clinics in Buffalo and Rochester, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld fixed 15-foot buffer zones around clinic doorways, driveways, and driveway entrances.
At this clinic, that boundary is a yellow line painted on the pavement. It holds six or seven people.
“If anybody goes over the yellow line, the police are called,” Cheryl says.
For Cheryl, the parking lot is more than just a piece of land. It is the freedom to be present with compassionate care, to give women the chance to see their babies, and to offer them real choice.
Buying the Lot
Cheryl had watched the property for years. It had been a gas station, then sat empty after remediation. A coffee shop tried to buy it. So did a discount retailer. Every deal fell through.
“My heart would sink every time it would sell to somebody, and then the deal fell through,” she says.
So she called the owner and asked to sit down with him.
“He said, ‘ Okay, how much do you have to put down for the down payment? And I said, nothing.”
“He chuckled, and he said, ‘ What do you mean, nothing? And I said, well, I don’t have anything.”
She asked him to give her two weeks to raise a deposit, and to hold the note himself while she paid off the rest.
“Within two weeks, I came up with investors that gave me $100,000 to put a deposit on the lot. And the rest is history,” says Cheryl.
With New York considering an expanded buffer zone around clinics, Cheryl says owning the land is what will allow them to stay.
What Comes Next
Cheryl does not have the Mobile Medical Clinic yet. She has the ground, nearly paid off, with a fence going up before the end of the year.
What she pictures is a Mobile Medical Clinic parked on that lot, steps from the front door of the abortion clinic. A woman walking in could see her baby first. She could hear a heartbeat, ask questions, and find out what help exists before she decides anything.
Help Fund a Mobile Medical Clinic
Your generous donation can help fund Mobile Medical Clinics in places like Buffalo, bringing the pregnancy clinic to the front steps of the abortion clinic, offering real options and comprehensive support.
By supporting Save the Storks, you help women like Cheryl as they continue the work of bringing care to women when they need it most.
Cheryl knows the difference that one yes can bring. And she will continue giving her yes.
“One person at a time, one baby at a time, one mom at a time,” says Cheryl.
