2019 Grant Winner
2019 Women and Change grant winner Baby Give Back has reported a higher than expected need for families with babies Logan community following the opening of their Brisbane premises.
Baby Give Back CEO Carly Fradgley explained that it very quickly became clear that the community most in need of help was the Logan corridor.
“While we only opened in January 2020 we have already helped over 140 babies and their families,” Carly said.
“We invited agencies to provide feedback on how we can better support them,” says Carly. “We also invited caseworkers along to a ‘pop-up shop’ so they were able to see – and select – appropriate baby essentials for their clients.”
“Very quickly it became obvious that we would need to focus on the Logan corridor with three in five children living in poverty within the region and urgently needing basic items,” Carly said.
“We secured an arrangement with a Logan agency to provide a monthly delivery of goods from our storage facility to start to address the needs of these babies and their families,” she explained.
“We now need to generate a flow of donations and money into our Brisbane-based storage facility to meet the needs we are uncovering here.”
Baby Give Back’s vision is to change lives by ensuring “every baby has an equal start in life”. The team of mostly volunteers does this by collecting essential baby items and providing them to families who are referred via social services agencies.
Carly said the donation from Women and Charge had accelerated their expansion to Brisbane.
“The grant, combined with the efforts of our volunteers and our existing relationships have helped us hit the ground running in Brisbane,” she said.
“Importantly we could have an immediate impact because we are able to have a dedicated Brisbane Manager who can connect and manage volunteers and leverage networks in the community .”
“Our army of volunteers also help to clean, paint, wash and repair donations so everything that all families receive items in good condition and suitable for their precious babies,” she said.
Since the start of 2020, and not included a recent ‘pop-up shop initiative’ Baby Give Back has helped a total of 144 children since January this year:
- 28 children in Brisbane
- 103 children in Logan
- 8 children in Ipswich
- 5 children in Toowoomba
Carly says while a Brisbane network of volunteers collect pre-loved baby essentials from donations offered by emailing brisbane@babygiveback.org the need for safe cots is the hardest to fulfill.
“It was necessary to purchase 150 cots last year to ensure all safety requirements are met which means our need for monetary donations is also important in addition to collecting physical goods.
“We have also identified we’re going to require at least a 200 square metre warehouse to meet the need we are discovering in Brisbane.
“This will enable us to make repairs and sort donations within the facility, which isn’t currently possible in our garage-sized storage.”
Anyone wanting to donate items or funds should visit the Baby Give Back website www.babygiveback.org/