Welcome Baby Boxes for New Parents ($60,000)

Committee: Community Resources

Cost: $60,000

Location: Citywide via the Center for Families for up to three years.

Short Description: Let's support new parents! Baby supplies are expensive and caring for a newborn is hard. This proposal will provide baby supplies for new parents and promote information on community resources to help ease the transition into parenting. 

Long Description: 

New parents have a lot to manage: baby supplies are expensive and caring for a newborn can be overwhelming. Providing free supplies and information can help ease the transition into parenting and support healthy, happy babies. 

There is a special impact for parents in need, and providing free resources to all can help reduce stigma. Importantly, sharing available resources helps connect new parents to the community, fostering relationships between parents and community members. By including information on resources in the baby boxes, existing programs offered by the Center for Families can be better advertised to new parents.

As a city, Cambridge welcomes around 800 tiny new residents each year. This program would use data from registered births to identify households with newborns. New parents would be sent information and instructions to pick up baby supplies from the Center for Families, and existing structures would be tapped to deliver supplies to new parents without residential addresses. Supplies may include diapers, clothes, a changing mat, books, teethers, bottles, pacifiers, outlet covers, a swaddle/carrier wrap, and breast pumps. Parents can be connected to resources including drop-in playgroups, parenting education workshops, and referrals to other programs.

An example of a baby box received by new parents in a European country.