This year, we are celebrating 15 years of our Riverside home.

That means 15 years of open doors.
15 years of mothers welcomed.
15 years of babies protected.
15 years of proving, in a very concrete way, that no woman should have to face pregnancy alone.

But Riverside did not begin with a building.

It began with a problem that could no longer be ignored.

In South Jersey, Bill Klatt was hearing from pregnant women in crisis who had nowhere to go. These were not abstract conversations about “the pro-life cause.” These were real women, facing real fear, real homelessness, real instability, and real pressure. Bill knew encouragement alone was not enough. If we say we care about mothers and babies, then there has to be somewhere safe for them to go.

That conviction stayed with him.

Bill and his wife, Joanne, became part of the effort to make something real happen in South Jersey. They helped build support, raise awareness, and carry the vision forward in a region that desperately needed a maternity home. This was not a one-time idea or a passing project. It became a sustained campaign of prayer, conversations, relationship-building, fundraising, and perseverance.

And, as so often happens in this mission, Providence moved through people.

The connection with Chris Bell helped turn that concern into a real path forward. What had been an urgent need in South Jersey became part of a larger mission: creating a home where pregnant women in crisis would be received with dignity, stability, and love.

Even then, it did not happen overnight.

It took years to get Riverside open. Years of building support. Years of asking others to believe in something that did not yet exist. Years of trusting that if the need was real, God would make a way.

Then finally, the house came.

A former convent in Riverside became the place where that long effort took visible form. What had lived in prayer, hope, and hard work became bricks and mortar. Bedrooms. Common spaces. A chapel. A place where frightened mothers could exhale, rest, and begin again.

And when the house opened, JoAnn DiNoia helped shape its earliest life as the first house manager. (See our podcast interview with JoAnn DiNoia below.)

Chris Bell always says and JoAnn Dinoia echoes, "No one is turned away." This has always been the heart of our ministry.

That is the heart of a maternity home.

Not theory. Not slogans. Not distance.

Welcome.

That welcome is what women encounter when they come to Good Counsel in a moment of crisis. A maternity home is not just about offering a bed. It is about receiving a mother as a person with dignity, with wounds, with fears, with needs, and with a future still worth fighting for.

That is what Riverside has done for 15 years.

And it reflects the heart of our mission as a whole. As Chris Bell has said so simply and powerfully: “No Woman Should Face a Pregnancy Alone.”

Riverside is one answer to that truth.

For 15 years, it has been a place where women have found safety instead of abandonment, support instead of isolation, and hope instead of despair. It has been a place where the pro-life movement becomes tangible. A place where love takes on walls, doors, beds, meals, case management, prayer, and daily care.

That is what Bill and Joanne Klatt helped fight for.

That is what JoAnn DiNoia helped steward in those early years.

That is what so many donors, staff members, volunteers, and faithful friends helped build and sustain.

And that is what we are celebrating now.

Not just the anniversary of a house, but the faith that opened it.

Not just the success of a project, but the lives that have been changed because people were willing to act.

Riverside stands as a reminder that maternity homes do not appear out of nowhere. They begin when someone sees the need and refuses to look away. They begin when people stop asking whether someone else will do something and decide to say yes themselves.

Fifteen years later, that same call still remains.

There are still communities where pregnant women have nowhere safe to go. There are still mothers in crisis who need more than kind words. They need homes. They need support. They need people willing to step forward and help build places of refuge.

If you have ever felt that tug on your heart — if you have ever wondered what it would take to open a maternity home in your community — we invite you to contact us.

Get involved.
Learn more.
Ask the questions.
Start the conversation.

Because Riverside began when faithful people responded to a real need.

And the next maternity home may begin the same way.

goodcounselhomes.org

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