OTTAWA (CCN)—On May 11, the day before the annual National March for Life, a carpet of nearly 7,000 crocheted, knitted, and sewn baby booties adorned Parliament Hill, sending a pro-life message.

Organized by the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA), the group that organized 100,000 pink and blue flags on the lawns of Parliament Hill and Queen's Park in recent years to represent the number of abortions each year in Canada, the "Booties for Babies" campaign initially had a much smaller target, said ARPA executive director Mark Penninga.

"We put a pitch out to get 1,000," said Penninga May 11. While the flag efforts took a great deal of coordination and organization, the baby booties campaign became a grassroots effort that "took off," he said.

Fiena Dykstra of Houston, B.C., told a news conference on the Parliament Hill lawn she had held a workshop to teach people how to make the booties. Interest grew into "weekly work bees," she said.

She described the thousands of hours people put into making the booties as a "hands-on ministry of mercy."

Inside most of the plastic bags containing a pair of booties was a personal pro-life message.

Dykstra said the crocheted, knitted, and sewn booties are a "visible voice" of the need to "protect the lives of the most vulnerable."

Dykstra said she and her husband Henry have five children. Years ago they encountered a pregnant high school girl. They offered to take her into their home and take care of her baby while she returned to high school.

The day she was supposed to arrive at their home, the Dysktras discovered a doctor had arranged at taxpayers' expense for the girl to travel 1,200 miles by plane for an abortion. "What kind of health care is death?" she asked.

Conservative MP Kelly Block thanked the organizers of the Booties for Babies campaign for drawing attention to the 100,000 abortions that take place in Canada every year.

The booties will be distributed to all MPs and Senators on the Hill, but their final destination will be pregnancy crisis centres across Canada.

Betty Bandstra, who runs a crisis pregnancy centre in northern B.C., said she symbolically represented crisis pregnancy centres across the country. She said well-trained staff in these centres are prepared to "help anyone who steps through the door" to make a rational decision regarding an unplanned pregnancy.Z