By Christina Leslie | Correspondent

Kathy DiFiore, whose life work with pregnant teens and their babies is the cornerstone of the film “Gimme Shelter,” will be a special guest at the RE:IMAGE film festival April 6 at Red Bank’s Count Basie Theater. The creator and driving force behind the Several Sources Shelters will enthrall the audience with a recounting of her mission and be available to sign pre-released copies of her semi-autobiographical book “Gimme Hope, Gimme Love, Gimme Shelter: The True Inspiration Behind the Move Gimme Shelter.”

“Gimme Hope,” whose print release date coincides with the film festival, is not meant to be her memoir, DiFiore cautions in the introduction. The book, which she has dedicated to the Holy Trinity and Our Lady of Guadalupe, “is the backstory of what is portrayed in the film and what I think will be viewed by God as the most important moments in my life: helping young, abandoned and confused mothers through their unplanned pregnancies.”

DiFiore takes the reader through the genesis of the Several Sources Shelters, a project begun to fulfill a promise to herself to help unmarried pregnant teens in their hour of need. The shelters sprang from a need DiFiore herself experienced after the breakup of an abusive marriage.

“My story is simple, yet complex,” DiFiore stated. Abused and homeless herself, she found that the recitation of the Prayer of St. Francis gave her peace and direction. “Whenever I would feel the despair return, I would go back to this prayer, and the peace would slowly return to comfort me and bring me a life of renewed joy.”

Begun in her own home, DiFiore’s goal to aid pregnant teens was nearly thwarted by a N.J. statute outlawing the operation of an illegal boarding house. As she tells it, the combined efforts of a congressional bill sponsored by state senator Gerald Cardinale to exempt non-profit groups from the legislation, and the providential intercession of Mother Teresa of Calcutta helped to assure that this mission of mercy could continue.

The book’s 14 chapters detail many of the philosophies DiFiore has shared with the scores of women whose lives she has touched. Her goal is that the book serves as a “story behind the story” for the “Gimme Shelter” film, whose protagonist has now shared these philosophies with a worldwide audience.

In an earlier interview, DiFiore noted, “In every one of the chapters, I allow one of the girls to write part of it. a lot of them have grown children now. I learned from these girls. And all the proceeds of the book go to the shelters. I have high hopes – not just for the shelters, but also for anyone who knows a pregnant teenager – It’s gonna help.”

“You will see through these words how this inspiration, interwoven with God’s Holy Word, [has] helped these girls through their struggles,” DiFiore tells the reader. “They are the words that have helped me through my own life… Our lives are intertwined and I could not tell my own story without including theirs as well.”

DiFiore will receive the festival’s 2014 John Paul II Gravitas Award in recognition of her life-saving work. The award, whose name in Latin means a quality of substance or depth of personality, carries with it a sense of responsibility, earnestness, dignity and seriousness. Her presentation is slated to begin after the awards ceremony, approximately 6:45 p.m.