MAKE A DIFFERENCE STORK’S NEST NEEDS BABY SUPPLIES
Since the 1980s, Dayton Right to Life has operated its Stork’s Nest Baby Pantry.
“We help parents, grandparents, foster families, anyone who is raising children,” says Executive Director Margie Christie. “We are also a great support for the many social agencies in the area, like Catholic Social Services, YMCA, Help Me Grow, and others. We are the perfect gap service for those families in-between resources.”
Pantry coordinator Moriah Patton says one of the organization’s greatest assets is that it can typically supply the resources to families within a few hours. “Families really appreciate our flexibility and readiness to help,” she says.
On average the organization serves 40 families a week. Christie says in 2019 the pantry served 3,459 children and gave out over 37,000 diapers and 960 cans of formula.
“Ever since the tornadoes last year we have seen a steady and significant increase in need for the families in our area.“says Christie. “We have received support from our grant partners, but recently with the closure of all the churches, we don’t have that monthly donation support that we relied upon in the past. We have also had to cancel a spring fund-raising event, making the future support of our pantry all the more challenging.”
Additionally, as a result of the opioid crisis, Christie says many children are being placed with family members who may not be financially prepared to raise them. “This puts an added burden on already struggling families,” she says. “Thankfully, through the generosity of our donors, we are able to step up and help these families accept these children. In the end, it’s about the families and the children.”
The organization also offers mobile pantry locations once a month to help those families with transportation burdens or need Saturday hours. The sites are sponsored and staffed by local churches; Dayton RTL supplies them.
Here’s what they need:
■ Diapers sizes 5 and 6 ■ Gerber Formula, powder all types
■ Sippy cups
■ Bottles
■ Toddle- size clothes and pajamas
■ Baby bath, shampoo, wash
■ Pack n’ Plays
■ Cribs, no drop sides ■ High chairs
■ Infant and toddler socks and underwear
■ Gift cards or monetary donations are also appreciated and all donations are tax-deductible.
Donations can be dropped off at 425 N. Findlay St., Dayton 45404. Contact Moriah Patton at (937 )461-3625 for more information. If you call ahead, you’ll be advised where to leave your donations, typically in the lobby, and they will be picked up later. For home pick-ups, you can leave the items on your porch and they will be be picked up.
Have gift bags to donate?
“Shortly after the New Year I started to think of what non-profit might be able to use various gift bags,” says Barb O’Hara of Kettering.” These colorful, useful-for-manyoccasion bags multiply like hangers in our closets, some are rather expensive, and many may be reusable. “
She figured there were lots of ways nonprofits might use them: for art projects, to keep supplies intact, to package a product purchased in their gift store, etc.,
After contacting several non-profits, O’Hara got in touch with K12 Gallery’s Jerri Stanard. “They have an artist-in residence program with various Dayton Public Schools and art students can use the bags to store their supplies,” she says. “And they can also sell some of the bags in their ‘Scrappy Cat’ store.”
K12 is the colorful building at 341 S, Jefferson St., in downtown Dayton. Phone (937) 626-2863.
The educational art studio is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Ring the doorbell and someone will help you.