By Dolores Madlener
STAFF WRITER

To quit a government job after 10 years and withdraw your pension in order to support a family takes guts and a strong faith. That is what Conrad Wojnar and his wife Linda decided to do in 1985. The cause was pro-life.

Today Wojnar is executive director of The Women's Center, a successful non-profit counseling network he helped found over 16 years ago.

It was the movie 'Assignment Life' shown by a member of Illinois Right to Life at St. Stephen Parish in Des Plaines that shocked him into action. "I had not realized how bad the situation was until that film," Wojnar says. He became pro-life coordinator at St. Stephen.

"We had prayer meetings and fund-raisers for about a year."Then in the spring of '84 an opportunity opened up. What began as DesPlaines Pro-Life, became The Women's Center, with volunteers and enough money to open an office across the street from a local abortion clinic.

Within a year it had outgrown its all-volunteer arrangement and needed fulltime direction. Tha's when Wojnar's family took its 'leap of faith.'

For nine months they lived off his small pension until they could raise money to go on salary."It was literally the 11th hour when a donor providentially-came out of nowhere- and started funding us monthly. It has always been an up and down financial struggle, but we have grown consistently." So has their family of seven children.

In 1986 they opened an office for Hispanic clients. In 1987 after picketing an abortion clinic across from Holy Family Hospital, Wojnar was able to negotiate with the building's landlord to open a counseling center in the same complex in return for not picketing there. He says their picketing had inadvertently brought the clinic notoriety, so the outcome was positive.

The Women's Center aims to reach women before they get to the clinic. It pitches its philosophy of 'Life' primarily through the Yellow Pages! Dollar for dollar, this advertising expense is their most effective tool. "Of the 5,500 women we reach a year, two-thirds turn out to be pregnant and 60-65 percent change their mind about aborting if given alternatives." The Center's counselors change the minds of some 2,000 young women a year.

"About 54 percent of our clients are between ages 18 and 24" says Wojnar."Fifty percent are black; 25 percent Hispanic; five percent Asian and the rest are Caucasian."

Wojnar adds, "It is much easier to convince a poor woman rather than one more financially secure who has seemingly better options."

The Center's offices in Des Plaines, North Riverside, Evergreen Park and the Northwest Side at 5116 N. Cicero Ave., operate with a combination of staff and volunteers. He says, "Because of the volume and intensity of our counseling, most of it is by trained and para-professional staff. But many volunteer opportunities are always available, from answering the phones to helping with fund-raisers."

With a yearly budget of $1.3 million, and obviously no government funding, Wojnar says, "We have no reserves. It is a month-to-month production. We get very little foundation and corporate support because of the perceived 'controversial' nature of our work!"

Mainstay funding comes from their Maximilian Kolbe Society, with sacrificial pledges of at least $1,000 a year; direct mail appeals; a flower sale on Mother's Day in 100 parishes, walk-a-thons and Christmas wreath sales at parishes. Their Life Banquet fund-raiser takes place Feb. 11 at the White Eagle Restaurant, in Niles. Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life will address the gathering.

Being dragged into a lawsuit by NOW (National Order of Women), a radical pro-abortion group, resulted in wide publicity for the Center's work. Today it is known in 48 states and internationally. Supportive contributors nationwide and in foreign countries are "another manifestation of Providence," Wojnar says, "directly attributable to the publicity of the NOW lawsuit."

Visitors from Europe, Argentina and Australia visit to learn how the center operates: from referrals to adoption agencies or parent-support groups to guiding some clients through the maze of public aid.

Visitors are also shown the Center's Chicago office chapel, dedicated by Cardinal George in 1997. "We have Mass at noon, Eucharistic adoration all day, and all-night vigils on Mondays and Fridays." As he said, "It was all founded on prayer."

Call the Women's Center at (773) 794-1313 for info or banquet tickets, or www.womens-enter.org.

DesPlaines was just an educ organization / we decided to get into counselling / we never changed our corporrate name in 95 / as far as the organization formally was still Des Plaines prolife, we decided to change the name with a neutral approach.for corporate reasons until 95 / first one was in 1984 / in 87 in Des Plaines /