Meet an Inspired Leadership Initiative fellow and pro-life advocate
Debra Blaschko is a mother, grandmother, retired journalist, pro-life advocate, and non-profit founder who joined the ranks of Notre Dame students in the fall of 2024.
After navigating the coronavirus pandemic, lung cancer, and myocarditis, Blaschko told the Rover that she was seeking a way to “renew [her] gusto,” when her son, Notre Dame philosophy professor Paul Blaschko, pointed her toward the Inspired Leadership Initiative (ILI). ILI is a selective program that provides accomplished retired individuals with opportunities for discerning their next step in life. Fellows participate in cohort dialogues, as well as campus culture and audited classes alongside students.
“I am so grateful for the ILI experience,” Blaschko shared with the Rover. “I’m going to get every ounce of everything out of this program, because I’m just so excited by it.”
Blaschko comes from a big family on a small Minnesota farm. The tenth of twelve children, she was the first of her siblings to complete a four-year degree. After studying mass communications and business at Minnesota State University, she worked for a county seat newspaper as a reporter and editor, before taking time to raise and homeschool her children. Later, Blaschko took up positions in student financial services at Minnesota State University and as a freelance writer.
Building off of her passions for family relationships, Blaschko remains active in ministries promoting Catholic family values. Alongside her husband, a deacon in the Catholic church, she has served at pre-marriage retreats with her husband for over 35 years, presenting topics ranging from finances to Natural Family Planning. She told the Rover about her special passion for educating women about the dignity of their bodies and the importance of monitoring their health, saying, “We see the value, benefits, and beauty of recognizing how a woman’s body works and how fertility is a gift, and not a problem to be solved.”
Blaschko is also a founding member of the non-profit organization Options for Women/Mankato. Options Mankato is a pro-life Pregnancy Medical Clinic Family Resource Center, which is “dedicated to helping women who are facing an unplanned or difficult pregnancy,” and offers services such as obstetrical ultrasounds, medical quality pregnancy testing, and educational resources free of charge. The center also features a store, where clients who attend parenting classes can earn credits to purchase items such as cribs, pack and plays, and baby toys.
Blaschko was inspired to create Options Mankato after her encounters with women who were facing unplanned pregnancies and wanted to reconcile their options with their values. To garner traction for the inception of Options, she hosted an initial interest meeting in which she planned for an audience of twelve people. Eighty attended. The Options team opened their first location in Mankato, Minnesota, later upsizing to a larger location two years later due to growing impact.
Blaschko has held a variety of roles with Options Mankato, including volunteering as an advocate for the center’s education program, assisting with marketing, co-chairing the annual Gala, and writing newsletters.
“It’s kind of like being a mom and a grandma all wrapped into one,” she said. “[The women] have all sorts of different questions about life, and a lot of them don’t have that grandma and mom that they can turn to. Meeting clients and working through lessons on pregnancy, parenting, and sometimes adoption has been amazing.”
As a Fellow with the ILI, Blaschko hopes to expand upon her “desire to give back and make the world a better place” through her educational experiences. Highlights from her first semester included theology and art classes, as well as cohort discussions and interactions with Notre Dame undergraduates.
As she continues her time at Notre Dame, Blaschko told the Rover she hopes to grow in her understanding of others’ perspectives and how they are formed. Blaschko commented, “We seem to avoid topics that cause conflict. How are we ever going to understand why someone has a strong belief in something if it is never discussed?” She continued, “We need to get out of our echo chambers and open our minds and hearts. We need to listen and learn.”
Blaschko will continue to participate in Notre Dame classes through the end of the spring semester. After graduation, she plans to return to Mankato to continue her service work.
Madeline Page is a freshman biology major who has recently begun spending her Friday afternoons increasing the mosquito population by tending to laboratory colonies. She has been told that it is for a good cause. Concerns can be sent to mpage4@nd.edu.
Photo Credit: Debra Blaschko
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