servicE ProjEcT toolkit Hosting a baby shower All babies deserve the best start possible. By hosting a baby shower for new mothers in your community, your club is providing more than just diapers, soft toys and tiny clothing—you © UNICEF/NYHQ2005-2102/Bannon are showing a mother support, giving her the confidence that, with this help, she can be a good parent. Both baby and mommy benefit from a baby Why iT matterS shower, and your club will enjoy it too. Think of it as a baby’s pre-birthday party! your baby shower is helping babies locally, but there’s a bigger Start by forming a baby shower planning committee, including opportunity to help millions of other your best party planners, some parents and grandparents, and babies and mothers around the any members who have a connection to mothers and babies in world through The Eliminate Project. here’s how: your communities. The committee can use these resources and follow these step-by-step instructions to make a great start for a 1. Educate yourself about the baby in your community. tragedy of MNT and share the message with your community. 2. Give and encourage others to do the same. 3. Serve the mothers and babies in your community. Link to these helpful resources at www.theeliminateProject.org. SOCIAL MEDIA Service project toolkit: Hosting a baby shower www.TheEliminateProject.org page 1 hoW To use ThiS toolkit BABy ShoWEr Global issue, local need The Eliminate Project is making a difference around the world—and for your club, too, as you focus on maternal and neonatal concerns in your own community. That’s the idea behind The Eliminate Project’s service project toolkits: to relate the global campaign to local communities through hands-on service. Use the tips and steps of this toolkit to: 1 identify a need in your identify the guests of honor. connecting with a Page 3 community mother or group of mothers who could use your club’s help can be as simple as contacting a local agency that also provides neonatal support to women. What will each woman need to provide a solid foundation for her first step into parenting her baby? 2 Define your project’s scope Decide how much help you can provide. Find a Page 4 balance between each mother’s needs and your club’s resources. Will you give one mother everything imaginable or provide a group of mothers with a shorter list of necessities? 3 consider community partners Look for other help within the community. Which Page 5–6 local agencies, vendors or community groups could you enlist to provide specific items on your lists of gifts or shower supplies? 4 Execute project activities host your shower. The possibilities are endless. Page 7–8 Will you include games? What food and drink will you serve? how far will your guest list reach? 5 Market your club’s Let your community know how Kiwanis supports Page 9 achievements maternal and neonatal care. Promoting your event before the big day and your success afterwards may increase the impact you’ll make for these mothers and babies as well as your club’s reach in the community. An important consideration: how will you tie this event to The Eliminate Project? 6 resources initial interview checklist Pages 10–19 Baby shower gift checklist Top 10 items for baby and mother Event flier Favor tag template Thank-you note template coin can label template Service project toolkit: Hosting a baby shower www.TheEliminateProject.org page 2 . identify a need in your 1 community Find the guests of honor. Providing for a baby is very expensive. in your community, there are probably countless women who could benefit from your club’s generosity.y our committee may need to consult an agency or organization in your area that can help you identify women who are the most appropriate fit. consider what organizations already serve women during pregnancies: • Pregnancy centers • Local hospital • Transitional shelters • Local health departments Need some guidance? • Places of worship • Social workers contact these national pregnancy • health clinics that provide prenatal care support organizations to find a local chapter near you. connectionS. Ask a social worker or agency representative to help you make contact with women who could use your club’s help. once you get a Project gabriel positive response, have a member of your committee meet with the mothers- A network of church community– to-be to assess their real needs and preferences, using the initial interview based ministries throughout the checklist included with this toolkit. United States offering practical Protection. Keep in mind that there are confidentiality and privacy issues support for women in crisis and screenings to consider. respect an agency’s policies and work within pregnancies. May be able to its framework. Also consider the pregnant mother’s feelings: For instance, a connect you with mothers in need. mother may want only to give everyone her first name. Find out how she feels Find a list of contacts, organized about photos of the event being used in your club marketing materials. by state, on their website. timing. you’ll want to connect with your mothers-to-be early enough in her www.gabrielproject.com pregnancy to give you time to find out her needs, collect donations and host the canadian association of shower. you’ll want to plan the shower 4-5 weeks ahead of the due date, in case Pregnancy Support Services the baby comes early. Working backwards from the due date 4-5 weeks, and An affiliation of centres throughout allowing at least a month to plan and collect donations, your ideal candidates may be less than 32 weeks along. canada that provide help to women and babies. commitmentS. Try not to make any promises to your prospective mothers www.capss.com until you’ve reviewed your budget and made some decisions on what you’ll try to provide. how it works TIP The Kiwanis Club of Downtown Mesa, Arizona, hosted a baby shower You may need to for a new mother the club connected with through the Save the Family work through a social Foundation of Arizona, a group that serves homeless families with children. worker or organization They were able to help a new mom get started, with clothing, furniture representative to meet and bedding, diapers and more. challenges, such as Because twins are twice as much fun, Kiwanians of the Far East verifying her housing Washington, D.C., club held a baby shower for a couple expecting situation or working twins, providing baby clothes. As part of the same project, the club through a language barrier. collected and donated food to single-parent families. Service project toolkit: Hosting a baby shower www.TheEliminateProject.org page 3 2. define your Project’S ScoPe Decide how much help you can provide. considering your club capacity and each mother’s needs, what can you hope to provide for these mothers and babies? AsseSSing Her needS. The baby shower gift checklist included with this toolkit can help you budget and prioritize your shopping. 3 Make calls or search the Web to provide funding for some of the bigger items you’d like to purchase. 3 Based on the mother’s input, as assessed on the initial interview checklist, mark out any items she either doesn’t need or already has. 3 Prioritize your list based on your known budget. meeting Her needS. Answer the questions below, then put it to a committee vote: Do you host a baby shower for one expectant mother and give her everything she needs or do you shower many women with a shorter list of gifts? There’s no wrong answer! 1. how much of the service budget will be allotted to the shower, enough to cover just the shower expenses or will there be enough to cover some gift list items as well? 2. Should each guest be asked to buy a gift from a registry, just send in a monetary donation so the committee can buy all the gifts or some combination of the two? here’s a good compromise. In the invitation ask that guests send in a monetary contribution toward the larger gift items with their RSVP. Make sure the RSVP due date is well ahead of the shower date, giving the shopping committee members plenty of time to purchase those large items. 3. Will you be accepting donations of used baby items and clothes? This will stretch your budget farther and may involve more people—even those outside your club. But it also adds some work for your committee members: organizing sizes of clothes and verifying that items are clean, safe and not on any recall list. you may find that, after hosting this first shower, your club has lots of connections, resources and enthusiasm—enough to host multiple showers a year or one big shower for many mothers. Service project toolkit: Hosting a baby shower www.TheEliminateProject.org page 4 3. conSider community PartnerS Look for help within the community. At this point in the event planning, you know what items the mothers and babies will need. you will stretch your donation dollars farther if you can get some support from the community, either through existing programs, by asking people outside your club for donations or partnering with retail outlets. 3 collect gently used items, but make sure they are safe, clean and in working order. Always search a company’s recall list before passing on used items. 3 check with area agencies for mutual interests. Some organizations may already provide some items at no cost.