Giving back in NYC

We are lucky enough to be 1 block away from Baby Buggy, an awesome organization founded by Jessica Seinfeld  aimed at distributing donated gear to needy women and families all over the country.  

 

Pretty Pushers has donated labor gowns to the Nurse-Family program, through which Baby Buggy facilitates first-time mothers with in-home visits from a nurse throughout pregnancy and into the baby's infancy.  On the day of our drop-off, we got to ask a few questions to the very upbeat and hard-working staff.  The most surprising point to us was to hear that amidst all the good fortune in New York City, there are still 1 in 4 children living in poverty.  By filling these needs they are filling hearts, so we are more than happy to help!  See the entire interview with program director Laurel Parker West below.

 

Got gear?  Check out how you can help http://babybuggy.org/

 

How do the donated items actually reach the people who need them?
Baby Buggy distributes product through 50+ carefully selected community-based organizations, each of which apply annually to become a recipient. Each month, the organizations submit the items they need for the families they serve. Based on available inventory, Baby Buggy does our best to fill these requests, providing approximately 60,000 items each month.

 


 
How do people qualify for being in need of the items you donate?
The community-based organizations we work with all serve low-income families and have highly skilled staff members who can identify the specific needs of each family and child.  By making donations through proven programs like Head Start and Nurse-Family Partnership, Baby Buggy is able to get critical items like strollers and bottles to families while also ensuring that recipient parents are enrolled in programs that will help build their self-sufficiency over the long-term.
 
Do you think the amount of needy families in NYC is underestimated?
Absolutely.  The latest data tells us that one in four children in NYC is living in poverty, which is quite disturbing.  We also know from current research that low-income children are often moving around and can be very hard to track, so yes, we know that the rates of needy families are even higher that what the data is showing.  
 
Tell us about the coolest/weirdest donation you've ever received.
We have received donations of some stylish leopard-print nursing bras.  While at first this might seem like a somewhat silly luxury item, the new moms we serve found these to be wonderful incentives to continue nursing their newborns.  We work very closely with Nurse Family Partnership programs that provide nurse home visitors to first-time moms from when they are five months pregnant until their children are 2 years old.  The nurses said that these fabulous leopard-print nursing bras brought huge smiles to the faces of their clients, since most did not have a nursing bra at all and it was so great to have something that was both useful and stylish.  We know that the nurses and pregnant moms we work with are going to be equally excited about the gorgeous pretty pusher hospital gowns too.  Many of these low-income first-time moms are very nervous about the labor and delivery process and having a stylish, practical gown to pack in their hospital “go bag” is going to help these moms feel supported and ready for the arrival of their newborn.


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