TOWSON – Frankie Franzoni was overwhelmed and in a state of panic when she first walked into Pregnancy Center North about a year ago.
Unexpectedly pregnant, unsure what her parents might think and worried about finances, the personal trainer had gone on what she called a “Google spiral” to look for women’s clinics that could confirm the pregnancy and offer support. That’s what landed her at the pro-life pregnancy center in Towson not far from where she was then living.
The first appointment confirmed that Franzoni was expecting a baby. A week later, an ultrasound flashed images of her little one on a screen as the baby boy was already approaching the end of the first trimester.
“When I saw him, I was crying my eyes out,” Franzoni remembered. “It was the most beautiful moment ever, but also a little bit of probably the scariest because that’s when it all felt real. But I was in love at that point. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.”
Stories like Franzoni’s are the reason Cindi Ritter spent two decades leading Pregnancy Center North. As executive director, Ritter helped shape the center into a place designed to meet women in their most vulnerable moments – and walk alongside them long after that first appointment. Ritter retired Dec. 31.
For Franzoni, Ritter’s steady presence mattered. She had not seriously considered abortion, but it had been an option prior to visiting the center. The second she saw the ultrasound, she knew for sure she was keeping the baby.
“I’ve never been able to wrap my mind around the concept of abortion,” she said. “It’s one of those things where I felt like I had to keep it as an option just to be fair to the father. But, for him as well, it was just something that we couldn’t go about.”
Franzoni took courses on pregnancy through the center and spoke with counselors. After her son, Ashton Rafael, was born two months premature in October, she and his father leaned on the center for support as it helped supply diapers and premie clothes they hadn’t anticipated needing. Ritter constantly checked in.
“From the first time I met Cindi after a few of my early sessions, she has been like an adopted aunt,” Franzoni said. “She got to know my story, my situation and then kept up with it throughout the entire process. She has such an open mind and open heart.”
Ritter’s path to Pregnancy Center North began quietly in the 1980s, when a neighbor who worked at the Baltimore Pregnancy Center in Baltimore often asked her to pray for clients. Ritter later joined the Respect Life Committee at St. Michael Parish in Overlea, where she also served as development director of the parish school.
After moving to Harford County, she spotted a volunteer notice in the bulletin of her new parish, St. John the Evangelist in Hydes, and signed up. Pregnancy Center North was then located on York Road in Rodgers Forge.
“It was pretty much baptism by fire,” Ritter remembered with a laugh. “You followed a counselor for a couple sessions and then you were on your own.”
She never looked back.
“It was just so beautiful to be able to help women in crisis – to help them see that there’s an alternative and to show them love and give them hope,” she remembered.
By 2006, Ritter became volunteer director of the center. A year later, she was named its paid executive director. During her tenure, the center served approximately 15,000 women – nearly half of the more than 35,000 served in the organization’s 44-year history. It evolved from a small volunteer operation into a limited medical clinic staffed by licensed professionals. With financial support from the Knights of Columbus, an ultrasound machine was added in 2014.
Ritter also introduced an incentive program in which clients complete classes on natural family planning, prenatal care, parenting and job readiness to earn credits for obtaining goods at an on-site boutique.
“It really helped change a lot of lives because they were becoming more responsible and more educated on how to care for their children,” she said.
Ritter said most women who come to the center are in their 20s and early 30s, although the center has helped a girl as young as 11. She estimated that more than 70 percent keep their babies, especially after seeing the ultrasound.
“The ultrasound is the black-and-white truth about what’s in their body right now – that they actually have a baby and it’s a separate human being from them,” Ritter said. “When they see it’s alive, it has a heartbeat and it’s moving, that’s a big game changer.”
Ritter understood that reality in a deeply personal way. In 2009, her daughter – then a senior in high school – became pregnant.
“Supporting hundreds of women through similar circumstances suddenly became a first-hand reality in my own home,” Ritter said.
Her first grandson, Henry, is now 16. Ritter kept his photo on her desk, sharing his story with clients as a testament to the gift waiting on the other side of fear.
In 2022, Ritter led the relocation of Pregnancy Center North to a larger facility just north of its original York Road site. The mother of three and grandmother of seven said the center’s work would not be possible without faith-filled staff, volunteers and donors.
“God was the real director in all of this,” she said.
For Franzoni, now 27, her experience at Pregnancy Center North left a mark that went far deeper than she expected. Her family now worships together at St. Joseph in Cockeysville.
“Being able to talk to the women at the center in a very open way about religion – and then just the act of bringing such great life into the world – makes me believe again,” she said.
Email George P. Matysek Jr. at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org
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