Archbishop Schnurr bestowed the 2024 Respect Life Award upon Donna Murphy, founder of Heaven’s Gain Ministries, at the Respect Life Mass on January 19th at the Cathedral Basilica St. Peter in Chains. She is pictured at left with her husband, Jim.
Donna Murphy has been a defender of human life her entire life. Her heart for the vulnerable started when she was young. In junior high, she used to plan and manage neighborhood carnivals where she would raise a couple hundred dollars for muscular dystrophy or cancer research. In high school, she volunteered at a developmental learning center for severely disabled children.
Donna received degrees in Physical Therapy and Athletic Training. She worked at local hospitals where she treated patients with a variety of diagnoses, eventually focusing on patients suffering from strokes and spinal cord injuries. She even used to spend extra time with the young spinal cord patients on her weekends off to help these young men with spinal cord injuries to acclimate back into social activities.
While pregnant in 1990, she felt called to volunteer at local pregnancy centers, helping abortion-minded clients to choose life. Donna and her husband, Jim, renovated a two bedroom apartment for mothers in need to have a warm, welcoming place to receive clothing, diapers, and other baby items.
Donna helped develop the chastity program at Pregnancy Center West. As a part of this program, she spoke at most local high schools in Cincinnati on the beauty of baby development in the womb and the truth of abortion. She also did these talks for Pregnancy Center East and Cincinnati Right to Life, sometimes speaking to up to 10,000 students a year. Donna’s volunteering at local pregnancy centers lasted for over 20 years.
Donna is a mother of eight living children and three who now live in Heaven. Her pro-life passion led her to foster care, and the youngest Murphy child was fostered and ultimately adopted. Donna loves and values her family fiercely, and she still aches for the three she lost. Her life-long commitment to uphold the dignity of human life is perfectly exemplified by her love for her own children and for those of the families she serves in her ministry at Heaven’s Gain.
In 2007, Jim and Donna heard the calling to help families suffering the loss of a baby due to miscarriage or stillbirth. Jim and Donna researched for a year, and Heaven’s Gain Ministries was opened in 2008. Heaven’s Gain has grown from only selling burial items to a robust support and educational non-profit that currently serves over 2,000 families. As part of the mission, HGM provides low-cost caskets, urns, and burial and memorial supplies. The free support includes birth planning, peer support, support groups, and a helpline. The educational mission has helped doctors, hospitals, priests, funeral directors, and pregnancy care centers learn to better care for those facing pregnancy loss. Donna has now created a program called Advocates for Parents of Perinatal Loss (APPL), which is designed to train caring individuals to address the needs of parents experiencing loss. Heaven’s Gain Ministries APPL offers a supportive “doula”-like service for those who will deliver a deceased baby. They guide families to create a personalized birth plan that will assist parents in treasuring the short time they have with their child, therefore decreasing many of the traumas that happen with pregnancy loss. In all these efforts, Donna not only exemplifies love for the unborn, but for the families stricken by grief at the loss of their child.