Choose Hope Women's Center celebrates 50 years of providing free pregnancy services to Harford women

May 8—April Cheatham, 38, of Edgewood, moved to Harford County with her newborn son when she was 18 years old.

She soon met her husband, Marcus Cheatham, and became a stepmother to his two children. But when Cheatham discovered that she was pregnant with her second child, she got scared.

Money was tight, and Cheatham did not have any family in Harford County. She went to Choose Hope Women's Center, formerly known as Birthright, to get resources and ideas on how to navigate her situation.

"I met Edna; she was one of the ladies there that volunteered, and she was life for me," April Cheatham said. "She helped me acknowledge that I can do it. That I was strong enough and that I had everything that I needed. What I didn't have, they were going to make sure that I had it."

The women's center opened in 1973 in a small trailer in the parking lot of Saint Ignatius Church in Forest Hill. In 2022, it was renamed Choose Hope Women's Center with a message that no matter how difficult your situation, there is hope.

"There are misconceptions about us and what we do," Steph Atha, executive director of the women's center. "Our focus is all about her. We are empowering, educating, and equipping her. We are also very unconditional with our support. What we emphasize in our interactions with our clients is that we are going to be here and we are going to love you no matter what. We want to help her make her most informed decision."

Choose Hope offers free services including pregnancy testing, adoption, parenting, pre-abortion counseling and post-abortion support. Atha said clients to not need to meet eligibility requirements, such as income or insurance, to receive services.

"Whatever her decision may be, we want to help and support that decision, and in Maryland, she can make whatever decision she wants," Atha said. "If the laws changed tomorrow, our work would not change. There will still be unplanned pregnancies, and we service women and their children until they are 3 years old."

The organization is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, and is fully donor supported. Churches, local women's groups and others donate items and funds for the families.

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The Morning Sun

The women's center also offers support to first-time fathers, with male volunteers ready to encourage dads in the same way that female volunteers encourage and support moms. The Dad Coaching Program is a is a one-on-one, six-session opportunity for men that helps them set goals and provides a coach to help achieve them.

Choose Hope Women's Center helped Cheatham with three of her kids, who have maintained relationships with the female volunteers at the center.

"I never saw my life the way that it is now, working at a nonprofit, going to school, having my beautiful kids," Cheatham said. "I never imagined that it was going to look like this but for some reason the women at Choose Hope did. They saw something in me, and they saw that I was going to be something. They saw that my children are worth it."

Cheatham is active in the community, and a student at Harford County Community College. She is the director of community and business relations of Extreme Family Outreach, a 501(c)3 organization that conducts community impact programs with elementary and middle-school aged youth in underserved communities.

"We all make mistakes and I made some really dumb ones when I was younger, but thankfully you don't stay young," Cheatham said. "I'm in a much better situation now than I was then. It's places like Choose Hope that don't judge people, those places teach us that we don't have to live with stupid choices for the rest of our lives. You have a choice."

Choose Hope Women's Center has offices in Bel Air and Edgewood. For more information, visit choosehopetoday.org.