Based on a true story, Gimme Shelter is a movie that opens in select theaters tonight and exposes the sad plight of young pregnant women who decide to choose life in a pro-abortion world.

Gimme Shelter tells the story of the life-saving mission of the Several Sources Shelters for pregnant teens through the eyes of a 16 year old girl named Agnes “Apple” Bailey (played by Vanessa Hudgens). Apple’s mother, June, (played by Rosario Dawson), an addict and prostitute, is an abusive woman who is grooming Apple to follow in her footsteps.

Apple eventually runs away in search of the father she has never known. She finds him, a Wall Street broker named Tom Fitzpatrick (played by Brendan Fraser), and he agrees to take her in. Just a few days later, Apple finds out she’s pregnant by a boy she met on the train who now wants nothing to do with her or the baby. Her choice to keep the baby finds her running away again and she is taken under the wing of Father McCarthy (played by James Earl Jones). He brings her to a shelter run by a devout Catholic woman named Kathy DiFiore (played by Ann Dowd). Apple finds acceptance among the other girls and goes on to have her baby and start a new life.

Apple’s story of desperation and new hope has been told countless times in the shelters founded by Kathy DiFiore who has a life-story as compelling as the fictional Apple. Although highly educated, she suffered through an abusive relationship and had a bout with homelessness herself before this successful Wall Street executive was inspired to do more for those in need. Once she recovered from her own woes, she got back on her feet, bought a house, and let her faith take it from there.

“I always felt God was helping me every step of the way to rebuild my life, but once I got my house, I had this compelling sense through the prayer of St. Francis, which is, ‘Make me a channel of your peace.’ That’s what brought me peace,” she told CNSNews.com.

She started out by volunteering at a prison, then took in a woman who had adult acute leukemia and was told she had only six months to live.

“Instead she survived and she went on to take care of her mother and her brother, all because I want to do God’s work,” DiFiore said. “And then finally I took in these unwed mothers and their babies, and that’s what everyone enjoyed. It was like focus on this, Kathy, and that’s what I did.”

The demand for her help from young mothers in need eventually lured her out of the corporate world and allowed her to devote herself full-time to sheltering girls. She now has five residential shelters in New Jersey, five websites and a 24-hour national hotline for pregnant women.

But it wasn’t always easy. At one point, when the state of New Jersey realized she was taking girls into her home, she was accused of running an illegal boarding home for which she was fined $10,000. Even though a sympathetic state lawmaker tried to pass a law that would exempt her from the ruling, final approval of the bill was hampered by people who opposed the measure. It just so happened that at the same time, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was in New York to accept an award at the United Nations. DiFiore contacted her for help. Mother Teresa wrote a letter of support which convinced legislators to change their minds. The bill was passed, the fine removed, and Kathy’s work became legal. She would go on to found several more shelters throughout the state of New Jersey.

The film, which gives a poignant view inside the workings of a vital pregnancy care center, received a powerful endorsement from Bishop Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life Pontifical Academy for Life, who said the film explores “the hard questions regarding the meaning of life, family, love and suffering.”

Written and directed by Ronald Krauss, Gimme Shelter opens in theaters across the country tonight. Click here to find a theater near you!

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