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Gabriel Dionisi is convinced the simplest ideas can often be the most effective. That’s why the pro-life college student has spent the last several years of his life mailing out thousands upon thousands of pro-life bumper stickers to Americans across the nation.
About 15,000 stickers to 45 states is the latest tally for the 23-year-old senior at Bridgewater State University, he told The College Fix in a recent interview.
“It seemed like something pretty simple I could do,” Dionisi said. “Bumper stickers are very cheap. It’s no effort to put on; you stick it on, you forget about it.”
The stickers direct people to OptionLine, a 24/7 pregnancy help contact center, which gave Dionisi its stamp of approval, he said.
“They have a whole network of pregnancy centers. If someone goes to the website and puts in their zip code, it will show a map of resources within 50 miles,” Dionisi said.
People who seek to receive free bumper stickers can request them from Dionisi’s ministry, ProLifeStickers.com, which he launched as a passion project, relying nearly entirely on donations to spread his message, aside from charging a small fee for magnetic bumper stickers.
Dionisi’s Catholic community has been a strong foundation for his work, including his uncle, who is a Catholic doctor, he said.
“In the early years, when this was at a much smaller scale, a lot of the funds came from my family,” he said, adding that recently, thanks to more word-of-mouth, news articles, and a crowdfunding page on LifeFunder, he is stable financially.
“There have been stretches when I have operated from the red,” he said, “but I’ve been confident that with enough time and appeals I can raise the money I need.”
Part of his ministry centers on the fact that studies have found women feel immense pressure to abort their unborn child.
“Realizing so many women would choose life if they felt they had more support was a big thing,” he said. “The pro-life movement has resources and helplines to help women connect with pregnancy centers or shelters or whatever they need.”
Dionisi said his passion stems from knowing details about the violent way in which babies are aborted. He said if all this has just saved one life, then it’s worth it.
“If you drive regularly and 20 people see that a day, that’s over 7,000 [people seeing the sticker] a year,” said Dionisi. “Just one person is making an impact, and if you share [the stickers] with somebody at your church, it really adds up quickly.”
“I started realizing that I wanted to make this a bigger thing and get more coverage nationally because of OptionLine’s national resources,” said Dionisi.
Design of one of the stickers available at ProLifeStickers.org. Dionisi creates all of the stickers himself.
Attending pro-life events to share his bumper stickers led him to Students for Life of America. He now is the president of Bridgewater’s chapter of Students for Life of America.
However, the Boston native is fighting an uphill battle in the Bay State.
The state of Massachusetts has one of the highest pro-abortion populations in the country — 78 percent of the state’s residents support legal abortion, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.
Massachusetts state law allows abortions to be performed up to 24 weeks after the mother’s last period, according to the state website. The state makes exceptions for the life and health of the mother.
“Beware anti-abortion centers,” states on the Massachusetts state government website’s page on accessing abortion care.
Dionisi said he is not intimidated by the views of his state. He previously led a ministry called Pro-Life Standouts to encourage young adults in streetside activism.
“If every person in the United States knows about OptionLine.org as a resource for unexpected pregnancies, and all of the resources the pro-life movement is able to provide, then the abortion rate would decrease. A lot more babies would be alive,” he said.
Now, Dionisi is looking to expand his pro-life footprint. He currently is in SFLA’s National Leaders Collective.
“I want everyone to have the chance to live and grow up and realize their potential,” Dionisi said.
MORE: Christian university in Southern California denies pro-life club official recognition
