See Beautiful Grant Applicant: Helping Mamas

The feature below is brought to you by Helping Mamas, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. 

To learn more about Helping Mamas, please visit their website page: here.

 Filling the Gap for Mamas 

Helping Mamas began as a labor of love by two social workers and moms. After 15 years in the social service field, we noticed a huge gap in services. This gap was preventing families from being able to move out of poverty, feel confident in their parenting skills and provide the most basic needs for their children. Prior to Helping Mamas there was no coordinated effort to collect and distribute essential infant and children items.

Diapers, wipes, car seats, and cribs are critical to health and safety of children and often the most expensive items to purchase. These items cannot be purchased through Public Assistance Programs like WIC and SNAP (formally Food Stamps). 3 in 5 moms in the United States has to choose between diapers and food for their children. Without an adequate supply of diapers, children can’t attend early childhood education programs. Without childcare, parents can’t work.

This gap in services was keeping families stuck in the diaper gap and unable to see the beauty of being a parent. If you are constantly worried about providing for your child’s most basic needs, you can’t stop and feel the joy of parenting. Helping Mamas was formed to provide these essential basic needs to families who need them the most.

The mission of Helping Mamas is to connect helping mamas to mamas needing help and we serve as the baby supply bank of Metro Atlanta. Our goal is to make sure all mothers and children with limited financial means have the basic needs they need thrive and grow. We collect and distribute essential infant and child items to organizations that serve women and children in need.

​We were able to reach over 30,000 women and children in 2019. We work with over 100 social service agencies and hospitals that serve women and children in need. These organizations list basic baby supplies, like diapers and wipes, as their main need. We are also on a mission to provide period products to women and girls who are missing up to a week of work and school because of a lack of these basic hygiene items. ​

A new study on access to period products has found that this lack of access can also put women and girls at greater risk of depression, anxiety, and further financial barriers. Of those who have experienced period poverty, nearly two-thirds said they lack confidence because of harassment at school and experience high anxiety and depression. We already know that lack of access to menstrual products can keep people from going to school or work, prevent them from accessing opportunities, and perpetuate homelessness, but these new findings show how far-reaching the impacts of period poverty really may be.

We have an immense goal of serving 50,000 low-income women and children in Metro Atlanta in 2020. We are the only nonprofit in Georgia addressing the association between lack of diapers and period supplies and how that affects our community’s economic growth, our status in education and the overall health of our population. It is not okay that girls and women in this state, let alone this country, lack the adequate supplies necessary to live and thrive.

Mothers are not able to provide clean diapers for their children. Without diapers, they cannot go to daycare. Without diapers, they cannot go to work. Without period products, girls are missing up to a week of school. This is unacceptable. Our goal is to connect the dots between the people that have access and resources to the people with access to those in need. We can keep girls and women in school and employed. We can do something about this.

Our team was thrilled to learn of the See Beautiful grant and to be invited to apply!
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The funds from a See Beautiful grant will help us create more ways to collect and distribute period products to the women we serve. Our agency partners, donors and volunteers help us see beauty through their service every day. Without them, our work wouldn’t be possible. We want to create an efficient and meaningful way for our agency partners to acquire the products to enable women and girls in our community to receive period products and remove any barriers that they face. With the support and products they need, we hope they are able to see the beautiful in themselves as well!

Submitted by ​Jan Mayheu

Director of Community Support, Helping Mamas