5th Annual NICU Santa
It's time for our 5th Annual NICU Santa! For the fifth year in a row, we are showering NICU families who are spending the holidays in the hospital with their precious miracle babies and the nurses, staff, and doctors with a little love. I honestly can’t believe we’re on year FIVE!
I wrote an entire blog post here that you can check out for all the details!
The gist … five years ago, we spent the holidays in the NICU with our precious Weldon, our Thanksgiving miracle. Weldon was born early at just 27 weeks on Thanksgiving Day while we were visiting my family in Shreveport, Louisiana for Thanksgiving (we were living in Houston at the time). I will never be able to say thank you enough to our family, friends, nurses, doctors, staff, my Cobalt Chronicles family, and complete strangers who prayed for Weldon daily, gifted us restaurant delivery gift cards, sent baby gifts from my registry, and DMed and texted encouraging messages. What I CAN do is show the same kind of thoughtfulness, care, and kindness to other families in the NICU this holiday season. I'm asking for your help to make an even bigger impact! With the funds we raise, we're going to fulfill needs for the babies, caregivers, parents, nurses, staff, and doctors.
My Venmo handle is @Ashlee-Hightower (over the past few years, Venmo has worked the best for donations). My email address for PayPal is ashlee.hightower@gmail.com if you prefer to donate that way.
Babies
The need here is for the precious miracle babies. There's always a need at the NICU for preemie sized clothing. I dive more into this need in this blog post. I was BEYOND thankful for the donation closet when it came time for Weldon to wear clothes - he wasn't able to wear clothing for the first few weeks of life. I wasn't expecting the doctors to clear him to wear clothing when they did. I wasn’t prepared, but thanks to the donation closet, he was able to wear a piece from the donation closet, which felt like a huge milestone towards him being more like a “normal” newborn.
NICU babies' family situations and circumstances run the gamut. Some families are not financially or logistically able to purchase preemie clothing. And some of the babies in the NICU have been given up for adoption or abandoned. These precious babies need clothing and the NICU staff relies on donations for these needs. We use a portion of the funds to purchase the much needed clothing items. You can check out our Reel from last year’s NICU Santa to see what we’ve been able to provide in the past.
Parents
Gift cards to restaurants within walking distance of the NICU, snacks to fill snack carts, and gas gift cards. I was at the NICU without a car on most days. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time away from Weldon. I was always looking for food options close by the hospital and packed tons of snacks for myself to get me through the long days at the hospital. Keep in mind that babies are flown in from all over the area as NICUs are few and far between. Some parents are only able to visit their babies on certain days of the week because of other life commitments. Making their time spent at the NICU precious. These parents are going through a lot, and just knowing that someone is thinking about them enough to provide a snack, an easy meal, or gas for their round-trips will mean so much!
Ronald McDonald House
I’m excited to add in this new avenue we’re hoping to support this year! A brand new Ronald McDonald House opened at Willis-Knighton South Hospital this year (the hospital where Weldon was born and where we send all of our donations). Ronald McDonald House provides numerous services and support systems to families whose children are in the hospital including housing, nightly hot meals, laundry services, a kitchen, stocked family pantry, play areas, remote work spaces, and more!
How You Can Help
I’m so excited to fulfill these needs this holiday season. I so appreciate any and all donations. You will never know the impact even the smallest donation will make on a family who is spending the holidays in the hospital with their new, tiny little miracle.
Venmo worked well the past three years as the donation platform - it’s one of the only platforms that doesn't charge a fee. I’ll be accepting donations via Venmo TODAY through Christmas Eve. I'll put all of the funds to use and plan on delivering the gifts to the NICU while I’m home the week after Christmas. If you’d like to participate in any other way, aside from donating through Venmo, please email me at ashlee@cobaltchronicles.com!
DONATE: Donate via Venmo by clicking here!
Thank you! I truly appreciate each and every one of you! You have no idea the impact these small acts of kindness will have on each family.
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