What kind of gently used donation items is Little Angels currently accepting?

Our storefront is small with limited capacity. At this time we are only accepting nursing, infant and toddler gear. Things like, breast pumps, car seats, bassinets, etc.

How does Little Angels determine what families to enroll?

With the intent of “neighbors helping neighbors,” we are focusing our Family Outreach specifically within Brooklyn Community District 1 (Greenpoint, Williamsburg and eventually Bushwick). Through our Angel Babies events, we have a strong connection to a few WIC programs in the district and will be expanding to reach out to schools, daycares, churches, housing developments, hospital programs, elected officials constituent services, and more. Our goal is to work with local community organizations that provide other services to families in need that would also benefit from being a part of Little Angels.

We will err away from families who reach out directly (for the time being), as we see our program’s offering as one component of coordinated care that we’d like the family to be plugged into.

What is WIC?

Women, Infants and Children (WIC) provides nutritious foods, nutrition education, breastfeeding support and referrals to health care and social services for millions of low-income families and it plays a crucial role in improving lifetime health for women, their infants and young children. Part of the nation’s nutrition safety net for over 45 years, WIC now serves over 6 million pregnant and postpartum women, infants and children through their fifth birthday.

While WIC provides these vital services, they don’t provide the material essentials. That’s where community-based organizations and partnerships like Little Angels come in.

What does the family recruitment and engagement process look like?

We are currently building a network of local organizations that can refer expecting mothers or parents/guardians of infants/toddlers. Once those partners make a referral, our Family Engagement Ambassadors work with the parent/guardian to understand their needs, identify available gear and coordinate a donation drop off.

How is this Little Angels funded? Is more needed?

Thanks to the hard work of our event honorees this year, we have secured a good amount of funding for the board to approve investing in the start-up of this program (1-year storefront lease, insurance and furnishings). We will gladly accept help on fundraising to sustain this important community program. By navigating our donation page, you will see “Little Angels” as an option to which you’d like to donate your support!

What’s going to happen to the Angel Babies events? Why modify the model?

Our plan is to continue these events, but less frequently and at smaller scales. While the events have been successful in placing donated items into the hands of those who need them the most, they have been geographically limited to one location, families wait months for the next event and the nature of the events do not foster a neighbor-to-neighbor connection. With the day-to-day programming of North Brooklyn Angels, an organic connection happens between volunteers and participants over time. This is the ‘neighbors helping neighbors’ vision we want to carry through to Little Angels.

North Brooklyn has witnessed a substantial flow of migrants and asylum seekers moving into emergency and temporary shelters in the area. Will this be a target population?

Our Angel Babies events have actually grown in scale because of the migrant crisis and have been able to meet this need. However, because the intention of this new modified model is to engage neighbors to help neighbors, eligible families would have to have somewhat secure homes in North Brooklyn. This allows our community of volunteers, donors and partners to keep connected with the growing families we help.

That said, year-round in between events, we refer donations to the very partners in the area who serve migrant families in need and will continue to do so even further systematizing this.