How Maternal Birth Kits for Haiti are making a difference

About a month ago, I posted in the PND community about a great project making maternal birth kits for Haiti. I had learned about this through the business Delicate Fortress Creations.  They were working on a project for Craft Hope creating bags to distribute to midwives in Haiti.  At that time, the project was in progress.  It has now been completed, and with great success.

The business helping Maternal Birth Kits for Haiti happen:

Delicate Fortress is a business dedicated to stopping human trafficking, poverty and slavery. They believe in shopping with a purpose in order to make a difference in someone else’s life.  Each item on their website is aimed toward one of these goals.  When you buy a product from their website, you will know that your purchase has helped to enrich the life of another. When they found out about the project for Haiti, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to get involved in a different way.

Each bag contains various items including alcohol swabs, soap, string, plastic sheeting, a blanket and a small stuffed toy.  These items may not seem like much, but go a long way toward creating a more sterile environment for a Haitian baby to enter the world.  Delicate Fortress hoped to be able to meet their goal, through donations of money and handcrafted items, by creating 100 Maternal Birth Kits for Haiti bags to send to the project.

 

Close to the deadline they had only received enough donations for about 30 bags, it was a bit discouraging.  However, the last few days of the project saw their number jump to 88.  This was still short of their goal, but was clearly an improvement.  As it turned out, due to discounts they were able to get, the donated monies stretch further and made it to 102 kits.  Karyn, from Delicate Fortress, bought soap bars at Target and when the manager found out what she needed so many for, he gave her a 15% discount.  She also received a discount for the fabric from fabric.com. Things were looking up.

In addition to the kits donated from Delicate Fortress, a church youth group got involved.  The McLane Church youth group in Edinboro, PA was able to create 295 kits! The kids were excited and worked hard for this accomplishment.  What a great way for them to learn about the joys of giving to others.

There was also extra donation money left over from the project earmarked for postage.  As a result Delicate Fortress was able to apply that toward a November sponsorship of a 15 year old slave girl in Haiti, named Benitha.

Karyn has indicated they will continue to sell Maternal Birth Kits for Haiti with an in your honor card that can be sent to the recipient.  This is an alternative gift giving option that allows you to give a gift to a friend {or for Mother’s Day} while also giving a gift to an expecting mother in Haiti.

She is currently working on new project ideas, and wants to do something focused on child exploitation.  You can stay updated on the Delicate Fortress Blog to see if there might be anything you can do to help once new projects are underway.

The maternal birth kits for Haiti were a big success, and those who participated know how rewarding it was to participate in the project.  Do not miss the next chance to do something big for someone else.  It is true that a few people working together can make a difference in the lives of many.

Do you know of a similar Maternal Birth Kits for Haiti story?