In Kind Boxes

Because every mom deserves quality postpartum care.

Mamas Making an Impact

March Update

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We were on NATIONAL Television!!

On March 17th, we had the honor of being on Good Morning America‘s GMA3 What You Need to Know. Click here to watch.

That day was a busy one, with orders, donations, emails and messages coming in.

Thank you to everyone who reached out to congratulate us on such a big milestone! It led to our biggest day of sales for the year!! We are so grateful to GMA3 for the opportunity to shine a light on our work.

  • Total March Impact: 52 boxes donated
  • Total impact to date: 1,301 boxes donated

Locally, we donated 20 postpartum boxes to Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center’s Women’s Clinic in Hillsboro, and 10 to Washington County’s Health and Human Services where they distribute boxes through a few of their programs serving new families in need.

We also have monthly commitments to donate boxes to families across the United States. These are through:

  • Miry’s List (California) supporting refugee families.
  • Bright Spot Network (California) supporting families going through cancer.
  • Colette Louise Tisdahl Foundation (Nationwide) supporting NICU families in need.
  • Rowan Midwifery (California) via our gift box sponsorship program, supporting Black Mothers in need through the care of Angie Miller.

Activity:

We love being able to highlight moms making a positive impact on the world through out Instagram Live series “Mamas Making an Impact“. We had the pleasure of chatting with Delisa Wood, and learning more about her journey to starting 3 Moms Tribe.

We also got to connect with life coach Dr. Krystal Conner. If you haven’t heard of her, please go and check out Krystal’s podcast. We’ve shared in our Instagram stories about how much we enjoy it, and know you’ll find a lot of value in it too.

Watch the IG Lives here.

March 16th was Maternal Mental Health Advocacy Day. We partnered with 2020 Mom, Shade of Blue Project, and the Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance to be a social media amplifier for the day.

We brought awareness to the lack of resources and support available for new moms, and how that needs to change. See our post here.

It was one of our most shared posts ever! Thank you to everyone who helped us get the word out about such an important issue.

Thank you:

Upcoming:

  • We have new merchandise coming to our shop page!
    • New stickers
    • Hoodies & crew neck sweatshirts
    • Stay tuned for updates about these new products arriving in our shop. Thank you for helping us fundraise by ordering from our online store.

Earth Day Oregon, a state wide fundraiser, is happening in April!

We are so grateful for your support. We couldn’t do what we do without you!!

~Maria

February Update

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  • Total impact this month: 49 boxes donated
  • Total impact to date: 1,249 boxes donated

We donate an average of 50 postpartum boxes a month, depending on the need of our local partners. Locally, we provided gift boxes to the Domestic Violence Resource Center and the Mother and Child Education Center.

For the second year in a row we helped our local school district celebrate staff appreciation week. We provided gift boxes to expecting and newly postpartum staff. We are so grateful for teachers, and how hard they work to make school special.

Outside of Oregon, boxes are shipped monthly through the following partnerships:

Activity:

Mapel Boutique hosted a Shop For a Cause fundraiser for us on February 10! 20% of full priced sales were donated back to In Kind. We’re grateful to everyone who shopped during the event.

Our Mamas Making an Impact series continued on Instagram. We met with Jenn Wirth from @momsmaternal health. She opened up and shared with us about her own journey with postpartum mental health. Jenn states the importance of asking for help when you need it. She also goes into a lot of detail about postpartum mood disorders. Click here to watch!

For Black History Month, we highlighted Black moms and women in history who made a positive impact on the world through reels on Instagram. We shared about Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, Dr. Mayme Clayton, and Katherine Johnson. Find @inkindboxes on Instagram to learn more about these amazing women in Black history.

Upcoming:

We’re looking forward to participating in the Earth Day Oregon statewide fundraiser in April. We are excited to have 2 of our 3 partners confirmed- The Hungry Hero Dessert Co, and Fat Milo’s Family Kitchen. Oregon based businesses, we need your help! We need one more partner with us for this event. If you can help us, send an email to: info@inkindboxes.org

Thank you!

We couldn’t do what we do without you. Thank you for showing up for moms in need.

January Update

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We started off the New Year with a bang, having our partnership with the Washington County District Attorney’s office featured in the Sherwood Gazette! Click the link to read the story, or go to the “Media Mentions” section of our website to find out when we’ve made the news!

We have big plans for 2022:

  • Move into our own space (increased storage, and capability to have volunteers come and help pack boxes).
  • Get Sponsorships and grants (to help cover costs for our new space, and donation of even MORE postpartum boxes to moms in need this year).
  • More press coverage (shining a light on our work increases the support we receive to then help more moms in need).

If you know of someone who could help us reach these goals, please reach out! We couldn’t do what we do without your support.

Upcoming fundraiser

We are looking forward to participating in the statewide fundraiser Earth Day Oregon again this year. We had our first meeting with the EDO Director this month. We’re excited to share more about what we do, and how it relates to Earth Day, and the United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals.

If you are an Oregon based business, who is interested in partnering with us for the event, please reach out. We need 3 business partners is order to qualify for the event.

Donations

We donated 49 postpartum boxes in January to moms in need all across the United States including: 20 donated to the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center Women’s Clinic, 19 donated to NICU families in need through the Colette Louise Tisdahl Foundation, 5 to refugee families in California through Miry’s List, and 5 to refugee families in New York through New Neighbors Partnership.

If you would like to provide postpartum essentials to a mom in need, please donate today. We would love to meet or beat our goal of donating 700 boxes this year!

What else we’ve been up to:

In continuation with our “Mamas Making an Impact” Instagram Live series, we had on Miry’s List Founder, Miry Whitehill. Miry shared about how she got started with her nonprofit work supporting refugee families in California, and about her new book set to come out in March titled: “Our World is a Family”.

Maria also had the pleasure of chatting with Dr. Carlene Link. They had an honest discussion of what it can be like for postpartum moms to return to the workplace. Carlene explains why she decided to make some changes in her career as a result of her own experience. And, why she started a business to help others do the same. Go to our Instagram page to watch!

Stay connected with us on Instagram (@inkindboxes) where we share all about postpartum, our work, and more. We’re grateful to have an amazing community of support over there.

Thank you

As each new year passes, we strive to help more and more families. The need for our boxes is great. Thank for donating to In Kind Boxes, and showing moms in need the love and support they deserve. We couldn’t do what we do without you.

Special thanks to Juna for offering 1 year free membership to their app- “the only app you need for motherhood”. 100 donated gift boxes have special inserts which include a code for moms to login to the app for free.

October Update

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We have officially donated 500 boxes in 2021, and 1000 gift boxes since our first boxes were available in November 2019!!!

We started our month with a delivery of 20 gift boxes to the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center Women’s Clinic. We also sent 6 gift boxes to the BeLoved Black Birth Centering program in California. The Mother and Child Education Center in Portland was given a donation of 10 gift boxes. We ended the month with a new partnership! We’re excited to be working with the Washington County District Attorney’s Office in support of their Cribs for Kids program. We donated 20 gift boxes to pair with the cribs and other materials their office is providing.

In honor of the amazing work that Doulas and Midwives do for families, we re-opened the application for our gift box sponsorship program. This program is for birth workers who offer their services to families in need in their community. We are offering three doulas/midwives a gift box a month for 2022. The deadline to apply was November 1. Winners will be notified by email by November 30.

Our Instagram Live series “Mamas Making an Impact” continues with more amazing guests this month. In this series, we love to highlight moms doing good, and giving back in some way. We also have very real and honest conversations about motherhood, and postpartum. Click through to watch conversations with Bethany Braun Silva, Trae Bodge, and Aliza Friedlander. We were also lucky to have local photographer Ashlie Behm join us for our “Let’s Talk” series where she shared her best tips for taking photos of our kids using our phones.

And finally, we got wonderful news from Fred Meyer, that In Kind Boxes has been accepted into their Community Rewards Program. If you’d like to support In Kind Boxes while shopping at Fred Meyer, please log into your rewards account, and find the Community Rewards section. Simply search for In Kind Boxes, or use code: YS234.

As we head into the holiday season, the demand for our donated boxes increases. We are in need of your support in order to keep up with demand. Please consider donating, and help us show postpartum moms in need that they matter, and that they’re not alone.

Thank you for being part of our village of support. We couldn’t do what we do without you!

~Maria Berglund, Founder of In Kind Boxes

September Update

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Being kind to ourselves, and spreading kindness and love through out our community is important. It’s something we strive for all year, but love highlighting it with you during this challenge. We loved sharing our Kindness Calendar with you for the #BeKind21 Challenge in partnership with the Born This Way Foundation.

During our Instagram live series Mamas Making an Impact, we got to have some wonderful conversations with amazing moms who are making a positive impact on the world through their work.

In September we chatted with:

This IG Live series has become a favorite part of the content we share on Instagram because of the real and raw conversations we’re having about motherhood. If you haven’t been able to watch one live, don’t worry! We have them all saved to our IGTV. Watch them here.

Our Founder, Maria Berglund, was up to some interesting things this month including:

  • A panelist speaker at Social Media Camp’s Social Media for Non-Profits Summit
  • A guest on MORE Magazine’s Founder to Founder series with MORE’s Founder Arianna Cruz. Find that interview here on their YouTube channel.
  • Ashlie Behm, a local Portland photographer featured Maria in her Womxn Warrior Blog series. Find the full interview here. Ashlie takes amazing photos, and we’re so grateful to be able to share these with you. If you are local please check her out!

We are always so grateful for the opportunity to share about our charity work, and our mission to help moms feel seen and supported on their postpartum journey. If you would like to help shine a light on In Kind Boxes’ work, please feel free to reach out to us! Email: info@inkindboxes.org

This month we donated nearly 50 gift boxes locally!! 30 boxes were donated to Ronald McDonald House in Portland, which will also be distributed to their Bend location, as well as to the Sherwood Family Resource Center in Sherwood, and Raphael House PDX. Donation delivery days are our absolute favorite!!! We also sent gift boxes to Maternity Journey in Houston, Texas to support mamas displaced by hurricane Ida.

Thank you for donating to and supporting In Kind Boxes! We couldn’t do what we do without you.

~Maria

July Blog

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This month we celebrated our 2 year anniversary!! We thought it would be fun to spread some extra love in July by showering a bunch of mamas with love. To do that, we enlisted your help- thank you to everyone who donated to our fundraiser!!

We held a Pop Up Baby Shower to help local families in need, in collaboration with two of our local nonprofit partners, Baby Blues Connection & Mother and Child Education Center. Families were welcomed to join us in North East Portland, to pick up their postpartum gift boxes, mini bouquets of flowers, have their portraits taken, and take home goodies, books, handmade blankets, and other supplies donated to our organizations. It was amazing to finally meet families in person! And to shower them with the love and support they deserve. We hope this is the first of many Pop Up Baby Showers to come for Portland families.

Our “Mamas Making an Impact” Instagram Live series had some amazing guests this month. Maria had the opportunity to chat with Linda Fruits @fruitsofmotherhood on the 9th. Linda is hilarious, and so fun to chat with. She has a way of making us all feel less alone on our motherhood journey. Be sure to follow her on Instagram if you don’t already. Linda also has a podcast to check out too!

Other wonderful guests we had on were Camille Joy of @momentsofjoypodcast, Chelsea Skaggs of Postpartum Together, Eissa Love of @eizzybaby, and Molly Kranovich of M.K. Namaste. All four of them share their amazing stories of postpartum, motherhood, and offer tips and support for new moms. We love doing this series where we can highlight moms making a positive change in the world. We hope you have a chance to watch!

Other gift box donations were made since our last blog post to Clackamas Women’s Services, Military Moms Collective, It Takes a Village Foundation, Virginia Garcia Women’s Health Center, Hiya Baby, BeLoved Black Birth Centering, and Bottoms Up Diaper Bank. We are helping postpartum moms in need all across the United States!! Thank you for helping us make that happen. We have donated more than a gift box a day in 2021 so far!

To stay up to date on what’s happening, be sure to follow us on Instagram @inkindboxes.

~Maria

Mamas Making an Impact- Kemi Oladimeji and Kendra Scott Give Back event.

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We are so excited to announce this shopping event on August 8th & 9th that gives back to In Kind Boxes. Our friend Kemi Oladimeji is hosting an in person shopping event in Dallas, Texas at Kendra Scott in Highland Village.

Kemi from the Kemi Chronicles will be in store supporting the cause on August 8th. Be sure to mention “In Kind Boxes” at checkout so 20% of your proceeds can go back to the organization!

Can’t make it in person? That’s ok! Shop with Kendra Scott online August 8th & 9th and enter: GIVEBACK-AHCKR at checkout (in box marked “code”) so 20% of your purchase can go back to In Kind Boxes!

Thank you so much for your support!!! We couldn’t do what we do without you.

-Maria Berglund, Founder of In Kind Boxes

Mamas Making an Impact with Sara Annapolen

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Earlier this month I got to meet with Sara Annapolen for an Instagram Live. The “Mamas Making an Impact” series is all about highlighting moms who are paying kindness forward through their work. This installment was especially fitting because May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and postpartum mental health was something we covered during our conversation. If you haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, I hope you do! Go to In Kind Boxes page on Instagram to check it out.

Sara has very graciously donated some of her beautiful hair bows for us to include in gift boxes, while supplies last. Another way that Sara is giving back to In Kind, is by donating partial proceeds from the sale of her Exhale Flower Collection through her shop’s Joy + Justice program. We are so grateful to Sara supporting our mission to help moms in need on their postpartum journey. We hope you’ll go and check out her shop, and support a fellow mom run business.

hair ties with colorful bows tied to them
Gift box filled with organic essentials for new mom and baby