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Members of the Right to Life community can now get their own specialty license tags while raising money for pregnancy care centers across the state.

Those in the Native American Prison program will be able to use funds from its specialty license tag to reimburse its volunteers who visit with prisoners to conduct group sessions and cultural teachings.

And because of a new law, those obtaining a Marine Corps League specialty plate will provide aid to young Marines in need, lend support to Toys For Tots and "do more good work," said the league's state commandant, Gene Wilbur.

These and other nonprofit groups obtained this new avenue of fund raising Thursday when Gov. Mark Sanford came to Greenville to sign a bill to simplify and streamline the process of obtaining specialty tags.

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Before, groups wanting the tags had to gain approval of the state General Assembly. Now they can go directly to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

Sanford signed the bill into law Thursday at The Piedmont Women's Center on Grove Road, surrounded mostly by representatives of nonprofit groups expecting to benefit from the new law.

Groups that qualify must have 400 or more applications, be in the process of raising at least $4,000, and meet other criteria, Sanford said.

Joel Sawyer, spokesman for Sanford, said one of the main forces behind the bill's passage was the involvement of South Carolina pro-life advocates. Sanford wanted to recognize their efforts by signing the bill at a crisis pregnancy center in the Upstate, he said.

Lenna Neill, chief executive officer of the Piedmont Women Center, said, "With this signing comes the opportunity to generate, with the Right To Life community and the movement, a lot of money so we can keep the doors open and the lights on."

State Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, said the highway department has had the ability for a long time to issue specialty license plates.

What it didn't have prior to the bill is the ability to issue a special license plate that also had fund-raising capabilities, he said. Authority for those types of tags had to go through the General Assembly like any other bill.

The new law is a straightforward process that will ultimately result in a fairer process, he said.

Wilbur said the Marine Corps League has had its own license plate for three years, but until now, "we've never reaped any benefits. In other words, we've never had the highway department send us any funds."

Sawyer said the groups requesting specialty plates pay the cost for designing and producing them.