Jane Fonda 'really proud' of 30 years helping reduce teen pregnancy in Georgia

ATLANTA — Legendary actress and social activist Jane Fonda lived in Atlanta for the bulk of the 1990s and 2000s during her marriage to Ted Turner.

But she left a genuine legacy for the city and state courtesy of Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, a nonprofit she created in 1995, seeded with $500,000 from her then-husband’s foundation. At the time, Georgia had one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation.

Over the past three decades, teen pregnancy has fallen sharply across the country but even more so in Georgia, where rates today are much closer to the national average.

“I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished,” said Fonda, now 87, in a phone interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I can’t pretend we are fully responsible for the drop in Georgia, but we developed a foothold and have been active long enough that we’ve gained trust in the state.”

Fonda, who now lives full-time in Los Angeles, is back in Atlanta this week to host GCAPP’s annual EmPower Party Thursday at the Atlanta History Center to raise funds for the organization. Last year, the event collected $1.2 million.

Atlanta comic Heather McMahan will be back to do stand-up, and award-winning hip-hop producer Jermaine Dupri will DJ an after-party.

Fonda lauded current GCAPP executive director Ronald McNeill, who joined the group in 2018 after a stint as chief development officer at the Boys & Girls Club.

“Coming in, he knew a lot about youth development,” Fonda said. “I wanted him to beef up our work with parents because parents have so much influence over how children behave. He’s really worked on that. He has also activated our rising leadership program full of young activists. I’m really happy about that.”

McNeill said he’s in regular contact with Fonda to map out strategies.

“Jane and I have a cadence of communicating,” he said. “She’s very much plugged in to what we’re doing.”

GCAPP partners with hundreds of schools and community organizations in school districts in 80 counties, reaching 89,000 students a year to provide medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education programs.

Among the topics GCAPP addresses when training teachers are trauma, parental engagement and mental health.

“I get up every day to do this work and it doesn’t feel like work,” McNeill said. “I understand the importance of ensuring young people live a healthy lifestyle. We are preparing the next generation of leaders.”

On top of abstinence, GCAPP promotes what Fonda dubs “dual contraception”: condom use as well as IUDs and similar methods to prevent both STDs and pregnancy.

Fonda’s interest in teen pregnancy was inspired after attending the 1994 U.N. world population conference in Cairo.

“It became very clear that this issue wasn’t just about family planning and contraception,” Fonda told the AJC in 1996. “When you’re dealing with teen pregnancy, you’re also dealing with crime, alcohol and drug abuse, school dropout, alienation, all these other issues. We came back here thinking, ‘Wow. What can we do?’

Originally part of the Turner Foundation, GCAPP eventually became an independent nonprofit group. In 2013, as the organization broadened its scope; it kept its acronym but changed its official name to Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential.

Fonda has held an annual fundraising gala for many years and has brought an array of big celebrities, such as former “9 to 5″ co-stars Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton, Robert Redford, Steve Martin, James Taylor, Carole King and Tyler Perry.

This year, GCAPP will honor legacy supporters former CNN President Tom Johnson and his wife Edwina, and Sarah and Jim C. Kennedy of the James M. Cox Foundation. Fonda will also give a legacy award to Ted Turner, who is suffering from Lewy body dementia, though he isn’t expected to be at the event. (Fonda remains in close touch with him and says, “He has his good days and bad days.”)

Normally outspoken on a variety of political causes ranging from the First Amendment to protecting the environment, Fonda declined to comment on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s management of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“This is not a time to voice my opinion,” said Fonda.

GCAPP receives more than $2.5 million a year from the federal agency.

A year ago, before Kennedy was named head of the department, Fonda told the AJC, “Bobby is my friend. I don’t agree with his stance on water in fluoride or vaccines or raw milk. I’m concerned. But I care for him and his family. I just hope it’s going to be OK.”

If you go

EmPower Party

7:30 p.m., Thursday. Ticket packages start at $5,000. Atlanta History Center, 130 W. Paces Ferry Road NW, Atlanta. gcapp.org/empower.