Picture perfect

MOSES LAKE — Crossroads Pregnancy Resource Center had an ambitious series of goals as it prepared for this year’s fundraising banquet.

“This is the biggie. We need $43,000 for a new ultrasound machine,” said Marc Newman, author and president of Speaker for Life, during his keynote speech at Saturday’s fundraiser. “For $43,000, we can get a new ultrasound machine that will be a massive game changer. … You want to save more kids? We need the tech to do it.”

It was a long list. In addition to raising the money to keep Crossroads going for the next year, the center was also seeking $1,000 for a new computer, $800 for chairs for consultation rooms, $5,000 for a conference table and $17,000 to finish covering the costs of hiring a bilingual client resource specialist.

By itself, those things would be a big ask. But they weren’t everything the organization sought from attendees of its annual fundraising banquet in the 4-H Building at the Grant County Fairgrounds on Saturday.

Newman said he needed those in attendance to write big checks — so big that signing those checks would make them cry.

“A big check is a check that is so big that when you sign it, it hurts a little,” he said.

And sign them they did. According to Carol Knopp, CEO and executive director of the Moses Lake center, Crossroads raised enough money to cover its annual budget — she would not say how much that is — and the ultrasound machine.

“We will be able to purchase that new ultrasound,” she told the Columbia Basin Herald after the dinner. “We’ve started the process. Now it is possible.”

With offices in both Ephrata and Moses Lake, Crossroads Pregnancy Resource Center is a nonprofit ministry that provides assistance to young women or couples who find themselves facing an unplanned pregnancy. The center does not provide abortion services but does provide pregnancy tests, parenting classes, and some financial assistance for young mothers and couples in need, Knopp explained.

Crossroads ultrasound technician Cristie Bingham said the machine in question will provide much clearer, three-dimensional images of unborn children in real time. The center’s current ultrasound machine is a standard one that provides two-dimensional images that tend to degrade into an oftentimes blurry, fuzzy and flat picture.

“It’s just a sub-par machine,” Bingham said. “It can be quite frustrating for me when I want to be able to show them that detail and just present it in the best way.

Despite the limitations, Knopp said at one point this year, a young woman came in looking for a pill to terminate her pregnancy, and a standard ultrasound done to determine the age of her unborn child revealed some surprises.

“She was confused about how gestational age is calculated. So when we got the ultrasound, she was actually over 10 weeks already,” Knopp said. “She got pretty emotional during the ultrasound because I think she was really truly hoping to see a clump of cells, that she could take a pill and make it go away.”

“At one point during the ultrasound, the baby moved his arm,” she continued. “The woman came back the next week and told us that she planned to keep her baby. And the father of the baby who originally supported her decision to have an ultrasound was now excited to have a baby and ready to support the child.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.