BASICALLY BABIES LTD.
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Mission Statement
Our role is to advance and protect the welfare of infants born into families in extreme need through the provision of a beautiful gift of a color coordinated, gender-specific, cost-effective, baby layette containing a one year supply of baby clothing and accessories. Our desire is to communicate value, dignity and hope to the recipient families while providing opportunities for committed volunteers to serve our fellow community members.
About This Cause
Basically Babies provides basic outfitting for infants born into families living in situations of extreme need across the greater Edmonton area. This infant outfitting takes place in the form of a very large package of baby clothing and other supplies that will support a baby for his/her first year of life. It contains approximately 110 items including summer and winter clothing, snowsuits, jackets, hats, mittens, sweaters, shoes, socks, slippers, sleepers, undershirts, blankets, towels, washcloths, toys, books and much more. We call these packages layettes. Each layette is created from a combination of gently used items that are donated by the community which allows many beautiful and useable items to be reused and recycled and sometimes even re-purposed from community members back to other less fortunate community members. In addition, some new items must be purchased to fill in gaps for essential items that we do not receive in sufficient quantities from donations. We sort, size, organize, warehouse, launder, clean, iron and ultimately assemble all items into beautiful, colour-coordinated baskets containing this full year’s wardrobe. Each layette is sized appropriately for the season when the baby is born. Our objectives in giving these layettes are three-fold: • to ensure we meet the very practical needs of a newborn in situations where their birth family is unable to do so. Families receiving these layettes are often marginalized members of society and are in extreme need as characterized by the following factors: extreme poverty, sometimes with little or no education, often with minimal or no employment, little or no marketable skills, sometimes having limited English skills, sometimes abused, sometimes addicted, sometimes with significant legal or family problems, sometimes with mental or physical illnesses, sometimes adjusting to a new life in Canada as a refugee or immigrant or sometimes looking for a way to get out of a life on the streets; and • to support these families by building hope through the gift of a beautiful layette. Recipients realize that members of the local community care for them and their baby despite the circumstances that they may be in and are willing to work hard to assist in providing for their newborn through the provision of a layette. This affirms both them and their new baby and provides hope for the future; and • to remove the financial and logistical burden of supplying baby items which allows them to focus on building and enhancing life skills relevant to the factors that have contributed to their current situations. This may include finding employment, gaining additional education, learning new job skills, learning parenting skills or dealing with mental and physical health issues. To this end, we partner and collaborate with over 95 local organizations (health care, charities, non-profit) who are working with these families on a long-term, life-skill building basis. These “recipient organizations” identify a family in extreme need and then request a layette from Basically Babies through our on-line, web-based interface request system. In this way, we believe we are partnering to offer a “hand up” not a “hand out.” We also know that using this method as a means of distribution assists in building relationships of trust between these families and their workers (nurses, caseworkers, volunteers, etc..) which assists in building positive change, growth and the development of additional life-skills. We also know that stronger families build stronger communities and because of this have been committed to the local community for over 24 years through the provision of our layettes.