CARE PACKAGES FOR BABIES NEEDED
San Jose-based Healthier Kids Foundation seeking to help new mothers
The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in California was a little less than a month away when 40-year- old San Jose resident Vicky Zarzosa Valencia gave birth to her second child, Dennis, on Dec. 28, 2019.
The first few months were a struggle for mother and son. Born with a respiratory condition, Dennis spent the first 27 days of his life in a neonatal intensive care unit. And he returned to the hospital within two weeks of being released, to be treated for bronchitis.
Valencia’s concerns for Dennis’ health only grew in March, when the pandemic was in full swing and a state of emergency was declared in California. The thought of venturing to a grocery store to buy baby supplies filled the single mother with fear.
“I’m scared of this pandemic,” Valencia said during a socially distanced interview at the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden in mid-October. “I’m scared of putting my child close to the people.” But help was on the way. A caseworker with the Healthier Kids Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in San Jose, called Valencia with an offer to buy roughly a month and a half worth of baby supplies of
her choosing, at no cost to her, and with no strings attached.
Within days, a package filled with diapers, wipes, lotion and shampoo arrived at her doorstep.
The package is one of roughly 770 the foundation has distributed to families in Santa Clara County during the pandemic. But funding for the program has run dry, and the foundation is seeking a donation of $27,600 though Wish Book to keep it going for at least a few more months.
Healthier Kids Foundation CEO Kathleen King came up with the idea for the program.
“Imagine coming home (from the hospital) and you don’t know how you’re going to get out and get these supplies,” King said. “That was the thought behind it. Maybe we could just make it a little easier for a little while for some parents going through some very stressful times.
“It just felt to me like we were giving a tiny bit of control back to a family,” she added.
King said the program initially was funded with $25,000 from the foundation’s reserves and focused on families of newborns it recently had helped enroll in Medi- Cal, a state health care program for low-income families, children and pregnant mothers.
Dennis was one of those newborns. Valencia, however, was skeptical when the caseworker called to offer her a package. She had received similar offers, but the callers in those cases had asked for her bank account information, a telltale sign of a scam.
“It was a shocker for her once the process was happening,” said the caseworker, Beatriz Castro, who helped translate for Valencia. “When she got her box, that’s when she realized it’s not fake.”
King said Valencia’s reaction was not unusual.
“You get some that say, ‘Are you sure? Are you kidding?’ ” King said about the families.
That disbelief almost always gives way to gratitude, said Erica Figueroa, a program supervisor with the foundation. Families often tell her their package “came at the right time when they really needed it,” she said.
“It’s already really stressful being a parent, whether it’s your first child, second or third, but during the pandemic I feel like being a parent is extra hard because you’re not only worried about yourself but you have little ones to worry about,” Figueroa said. “If we can give even a box of diapers or a can of formula to a mom, it would make a huge difference.”
Like Valencia, many of the mothers the foundation contacted about the program were worried about venturing outside the relative safety of their own homes to find supplies, many of which were also hard to come by in the early days of the pandemic.
“They were scared of going to the grocery store because they were afraid of getting their baby sick,” Figueroa said.
The $90 packages are tailor-made, with the families telling the caseworkers what they need and the caseworkers ordering the supplies from Amazon, Figueroa said. The most commonly requested items include diapers, wipes, ointment and formula.
“We usually put a toy in just to give them something that’s a little more fun,” King said.
King doesn’t envision the program continuing once the pandemic has passed, but she would be open to the idea if a source of funding beyond the Wish Book donation materializes.
“It would be pretty neat if we could find a donor that said, ‘ That’s how I want to make a difference forever,’ ” King said.
The focus likely will shift back to other programs the foundation offers, including VisionFirst and DentalFirst, which screen children for undetected vision and dental issues, respectively, as well as the Baby Gateway Program, which enrolls newborns in Medi- Cal.
Back at the Rose Garden, Valencia said Dennis’ health has improved markedly, but he remains in a highrisk group for COVID-19 because of his respiratory condition. Dennis, for his part, gurgled with laughter as his 6-year- old brother Sebastian played with him.
It hasn’t been easy weathering the pandemic as a single mother, Valencia said through tears. She lost both of her parents at a young age and doesn’t have any family in the immediate area. There are times when she has to take Dennis and Sebastian with her to clean empty houses, one of two jobs she is working to make ends meet. “It’s hard,” she said. Though the supplies she received from the foundation are long gone, the package continues to provide something vital.
“It gave (me) hope,” Valencia said. “There are actually people out there helping who do not want anything in return.”