The Saturday Club kicked off the second half of our Club year with a hands-on collection and service drive involving all of our TSC families! Prospective members, member volunteers, board members and our children gathered together at The Saturday Club to support the Greater Philadelphia Area chapter of Project Sweet Peas. We learned about the fragile needs of premature babies and specifically some important ways to support NICU families through PSP programs and resources.
Project Sweet Peas is a national organization and each of its divisions strive to offer support to local families of fragile infants and those who experience pregnancy or infant loss. In November we contacted Maria Bentin, the Philadelphia Division’s Lead Coordinator, to see how we could help our local chapter.
An immediate need that our local hospitals paired with Project Sweet Peas need was to restock their neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) care packages. Our group gathered to fill and assemble 90 NICU care packages and delivered them to Pennsylvania Hospital and St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. The bags included children’s books, milestone cards, journals, premie baby onesies, toiletry products and so much more!
During the meeting we unpackaged bulk ordered items, sorted them and assembled each individual NICU care bag. TSCKids decorated inspirational notes to include in the bags as well. We learned that it costs around $20 to fill one NICU bag and many of our members generously sent in monetary donations to help offset the costs of filling the bags. In addition to returning nearly one hundred assembled bags, our group raised funds to give back to the Greater Philadelphia Area chapter of Project Sweet Peas.
We hope that these NICU care packages and our donations can help many NICU families at Pennsylvania Hospital and St. Christopher’s as they bring comfort and inspire hope for their delicate new babies!
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