Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Helping your PRC: Donate

Donations keep pregnancy resource centers running - both monetary and material. Consider helping your PRC by giving a little.

A Brief Guide to Donating

Monetary Donations
$5 or $5000 will help. No donation is ever too small. Make space in your family budget to give to your PRC. Some families choose to give monthly, others yearly, and some give when they can. Whatever your case may be, anything and everything will be appreciated. Thank you!

Material Donations
Most PRCs accept used and new baby items. Some accept maternity clothes. Only a select few accept non-pregnancy or baby related items (such as regular women's clothing and household items) Before giving, it's usually a good idea to call and check to see what kinds of donations your PRC accepts/prefers. Chances are if your PRC can't use the items you give, they'll turn around and give it to St. Vincent's.

Awesome Donations
  • New or clean, gently used baby clothes
  • Packages of Diapers
  • New baby items including furniture, car seats and toiletries
  • New or clean, gently used maternity clothes
  • Hand knit or crocheted baby hats, booties, blankets, etc - a church lady special! Knit away, ladies!
Start them out right with something like these adorable baby MaryJanes to the right knitted by Therese! The pattern is sold on Ravelry.

Not-Awesome Donations
  • Stained, soiled, or otherwise damaged baby clothes
  • Stained, soiled, or otherwise damaged maternity clothes
  • Opened/expired baby food or formula
  • Used cribs and used car seats
  • Used baby furniture, swings, bouncers, etc
Unfortunately, due to the wonderful world of legal liability all of the stuff in the "not-awesome" category can't - or shouldn't- be used by PRCs, particularly the used furniture and carseats. Some PRCs will risk giving them to needy mothers, but for the PRCs sake, don't encourage them! The last thing they need is a lawsuit over a failed crib or carseat while Planned Parenthood and NARAL's minons dance about chanting "baby killers!" If you do plan on donating such items, make sure you can provide the PRC with the user manuals, model name and year, and ideally the original packaging. That way the PRC can check for recalls on the item.

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