Serving moms and babies with Helping Mamas!
Meet Helping Mamas, our nonprofit partner serving moms and babies throughout Georgia. They’ve served over 200,000 individuals and provided over 3 million essential baby supplies. We had the chance to catch up with their team to learn more about their mission and impact!
Read their interview below!
Tell us about your organization – what’s your mission, and what does it mean to the our community?
At Helping Mamas, we’re on a mission to elevate the well-being and dignity of women by providing diapers, period products, and other essential baby supplies. We harness the power of community support so that all families can thrive.
What’s the history of your organization? How and why did it get started?
Helping Mamas was started in 2014 by social worker Jamie Lackey who felt compelled to start collecting and distributing baby supplies once she learned that people receiving public assistance couldn’t use that money to purchase diapers. After seeing moms use plastic bags or reuse disposable diapers, she knew something needed to be done. Ten years later, Helping Mamas has become the biggest baby supply bank in the state of Georgia.
What kind of programming do you offer to the community?
Helping Mamas partners with over 150 nonprofit organizations, hospitals, governmental agencies, and other entities throughout the state of Georgia that help children in need. Helping Mamas gives diapers and essential items to these organizations, who in turn distribute them to families and individuals directly. The partners we work with address most of our societal problems and need including: Homelessness, Domestic Violence, Foster care, early childhood education, Hospitals, Child abuse, Food Insecurity (Food Banks/Pantries), Human Trafficking With our mobile distribution events we go directly into underserved communities to distribute supplies and we work with public assistance programs like TANF to provide a four month supply of diapers to moms who need them most.
What problem is your organization trying to solve, and can you tell us more about the issue?
Having a baby is extremely expensive. Even more so now post-pandemic. What used to be a $25 pack of diapers can now run about $50 and that is proving to be completely unsustainable for working families. Research suggests that 1 in 2 families experience diaper need and there are no federal social programs that allow for diaper purchases. 28% of families struggling with diaper need reported skipping meals so that they could afford diapers. At Helping Mamas, we are trying to bridge that gap so families do not have to choose between food and diapers.
How do volunteers support your mission? What impact do they have on your work? What difference do they make?
Volunteers are integral to our day to day operations. While we service the entire state of Georgia and operate out of a 9000 square foot building, we are a very small team of 10 people. We would never be able to keep up with the demands of our partners and the community without the help of our volunteers inventorying in donations, helping us to fill orders & load vans, and even set up for events. Our warehouse operates on volunteer labor and we are beyond grateful for their support.
What’s your biggest highlight or success from the past year?
Through community support, we were able to increase the number of people we served last year by 20%. We also purchased a box truck which helps us distribute more diapers out into the community. And most importantly, we opened another office in Albany, GA which will allow us to serve south Georgia more effectively.
How many volunteers do you need every month, and can you describe the experience of serving with your organization for the volunteer? What do they do? What’s a day in the life as a volunteer with your organization?
We typically host over 200 volunteers a month. They can expect to work in our warehouse or inventory sort room.Volunteer tasks can include sorting, quality checking, and inventorying in all kinds of donations including clothes, wipes, food & formula, baby equipment, hygiene supply kits, period products and of course, diapers. Volunteers also help us with organizing the warehouse, loading our vans & box truck for events, distributing supplies, and whatever else we need help with at the time.
What types of projects do you offer? What are your biggest projects available, and needs from volunteers? Tell us about a few different offerings.
In addition to volunteering at our warehouse, volunteers can join us at our mobile distribution events. We love having volunteers out in the community with us and we can always use the extra hands as we can expect anywhere from 200 to 700 families at each mobile event. Volunteers can also engage with us by hosting a donation drive or creating kits. Creating hygiene or baby kits is one of the most beneficial ways to help outside of in-person volunteering and our moms love them!
What do volunteers love about working with your organization?
I think volunteers love Helping Mamas because not only are we passionate about the work we do, we are passionate about making our volunteers feel like they are a part of the team. We genuinely wouldn’t be able to do the work without them and we try to make them feel as important as they are to us.
What’s going to be happening with your organization in 2024 that you’re really excited about?
This is Helping Mamas 10 year anniversary. We are excited to celebrate 10 years of serving our community with essential items for moms in need.
Let’s leave our readers with a list of ways they can jump in and get involved. Tell us how we can support you!
Host a Drive
Make Community Kits