Baby Buggy Hurricane Sandy Family Assistance Fund

One year ago, Super Storm Sandy swept through New York, devastating the homes, apartments, offices, stores, and day centers of thousands of families who were already struggling to survive.  The message we keep hearing over and over again from the families Baby Buggy serve in the Rockaways, Staten Island, Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan, and New Jersey who bore the brunt of this disaster is: "We are stronger than the storm."  The families from the Head Start programs, Fatherhood programs, and Nurse-Family Partnership programs we serve are deeply grateful for the help they have received and are working hard to continue rebuilding their lives. 

Over the past year, with your support, Baby Buggy has distributed 160,251 essential items to struggling low-income families affected by the storm.  Baby Buggy has provided thousands of diapers and wipes, food, cribs, furniture, strollers, car seats, toys, clothing, books, back-to-school supplies and backpacks, gift cards for groceries and other needed household items, and air purifiers for families living in moldy, water-logged housing situations.

We recently received this letter from a mother from Far Rockaway whose child is a participant in an Early Head Start program Baby Buggy supports.  We think it perfectly sums up how much we have accomplished this past year and how much more we need to do, together, to make this a lasting recovery:

"Dear Baby Buggy,

I am writing you this letter to inform you on how much you have helped my family and I. Since Super Storm Sandy I lost a lot of things due to the water and rusted pipes that busted. All of my bedrooms have mold where I had to throw away most of the clothes and the dressers as well as the beds. Giving my family and I these things such as clothes, food, lamp, diapers, wipes, and a dresser meant more then the world to me. Trying to get these things back and pay rent as well as supply things that my family needed was very overwhelming. When the baby buggy team supplied me with the thing that was truly needed it made me feel like someone still cares about us...being that I'm still going through hardship and still living in an apartment with mold and dealing with housing court. 

Seeing the face my daughter has when being able to go to the market with the Stop and Shop card meant so much to me instead of us standing on line for hours for free food. Also noticing how happy she was when she saw the clothes, dresser, lamp, and toys was priceless. Her birthday is on October 31 so last year she was unable to have one being that we had no lights, heat, nor hot water...due to Sandy she spent her birthday in the dark as well as being cold. This year she won't be able to have the birthday I would like to give her since I’m still going through hardship, but she WILL have a bed as well as a dresser, clothes, and toys that was given to her by baby buggy. I don’t know how I can show how much we really appreciate your help except with this letter...thank you so much.  Just knowing that there are people out there who still care means everything to me as I’m crying writing this letter thanking everyone again for all their help...it’s truly appreciated."            

Links:

• Check out the Baby Buggy website for more about our work!

In the Rockaways, Brighton Beach, and other neighborhoods in Brooklyn flooded by Superstorm Sandy, hundreds of children returned to their Head Start programs and schools fully equipped to learn thanks to your generous support!  Baby Buggy was able to provide over 600 backpacks and 600 early education school supply kits to the children we serve in these Sandy-affected areas. 

On a recent visit to one of our Head Start programs in Far Rockaway, we saw cubbies newly filled with clothing, backpacks, and school supplies, along with shelves teeming with books and educational toys.  As children and parents arrived, they expressed relief to be gradually returning to the normalcy of the back-to-school rush.  Because of the extensive flooding caused by Sandy to many classrooms, houses, and apartments, most of their backpacks and school supplies were completely ruined.  These expensive supplies are hard for the low-income parents we serve to come by during the best of times.  With the ongoing economic challenges of the rebuilding process, parents were finding it especially difficult to equip their children with the tools they need to succeed in school.  We were thrilled to step in and provide beautiful new backpacks and lunchboxes, along with crayons, paper, notebooks, glue sticks, pencils, markers, and all the other supplies children in early education and elementary school need to learn and thrive. 

And most importantly, we know that these beautiful backpacks and supplies helped the children feel some of the excitement that the start of a new school year can bring--every child deserves the thrill of flipping through a set of brightly colored new folders or running their fingers along the tops of a new set of rainbow markers!  These much-needed school supplies are a vivid reminder to these children and their parents that we have not forgotten about the struggles they have faced and continue to face in rebuilding their homes and lives after Sandy.  Thanks for making this week's back-to-school transition so positive for so many of New York's most vulnerable children!

Links:

• Check out the Baby Buggy website for more about our work!