Baby Kits – Disaster Response

(2) Packs of Diapers (25-35 per pack of designated size)

(3) Packs of wipes

(1) Bottle

(1) Tube of Desitin

(1) Baby blanket

(1) Box of disposable diaper sacks

(1) Pacifier

NO baby formula in the kits

Press Release:

Disaster Response Baby Boxes

Around forty volunteers from Goshen Baptist Association gathered at the Mineral Baptist Church’s Family Life Center on Saturday, May 20^th to pack 242 boxes of baby items generously donated by many churches, church groups, and individuals. 

Virginia Baptist Disaster Response currently have “Mud out” Buckets and non-perishable “Food Boxes” and “Hygiene kits” that they give out during disasters to people in crisis.  A new idea of making “Baby Boxes” to give to families with children in diapers will hopefully save some time when collecting needed items at Disaster Sites. The idea was a vision of Pastor Richard Sandberg (Louisa Baptist Church) who has personally lived through several disasters and coordinated disaster relief efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi.  He now trains disaster site coordinators with a program he developed for the BGAV.

Each Baby Box contains enough supplies to provide clean diapers and supplies for about two weeks.  We encourage all churches and Baptist associations in Virginia to join the effort to make the Disaster Response Baby Boxes to help when responding to disasters. 

The following churches participated in providing supplies for the 242 boxes: Antioch, Berea, Craigs WMU, Dogwood, Gordonsville, Hebron Baptist Women, Louisa, Mechanicsville, Mineral, Mount Gilead, Oakland, Orange (Kay Culpeper and Carrie Webb Circles), Smyrna, Wallers, Zoar Baptist Churches and the West Louisa United Methodist Women’s Ministry.   Some of the supplies needed to fill the boxes were purchased with donated funds from churches and church groups along with some funds from the Goshen Missions Offering.

The boxes were all uniform in size and did NOT contain formula or vary in contents.  Formula is given out separately with Food Boxes and water.  (The box size is very important for two reasons – 1. This size works well for these contents and 2. Uniformity to stack onto pallets.)  We purchased our boxes on Walmart.com packed in bundles of 30.  Each 15”x12”x10” box contains 2 packs of name brand Diapers (25-35 diapers per pack) or Pull-Up type diapers (17-24 per pack),3 packs of unscented baby wipes (50-80 in each),1 new 8 ounce bottle (in packaging),1 pacifier (sealed in packaging), 1 Desitin (4-5 ounce tube) or store brand diaper rash ointment,1 Blanket (washed in a baby friendly detergent, sealed in a plastic zipper bag, and labeled “Washed in ____ detergent, ready to use”  such as “washed in ALL Free & Clear, ready to use”),1 Box of diaper sacks (4 gallon trash bags will also work), 1 “Hope” New Testament (purchased from Christianbook.com),1 “Where is God in our suffering?” tract (from Christianbook.com)

 Premie and Newborn boxes were unisex and contained 2 washed receiving blankets (one boy and one girl colors) and a 4–5-ounce bottle.   

Packing volunteers came from Antioch, Hebron, Louisa, Mechanicsville, Mineral, Oakland, Perkins, Rhoadesville, and Wallers Baptist Churches.

Each pallet had 36 boxes total with 2 boxes of each size diaper or pull-up noted on the outside label. All pallets were uniform with the same number of boxes, loaded onto the same spot on each pallet with the same variety, and same contents.  Then the 36 boxes were saran wrapped together so as not to shift in transit.

The wrapped pallets were then loaded on the BGAV Disaster Response box truck and headed to the storage warehouse to be ready to go to a specific distribution site when our Virginia Baptist Disaster Response Teams receive a call out from the American Red Cross.

When a disaster occurs – one or more of the pallets will be loaded on box truck or trailer located at the BGAV warehouse and delivered to the staging site. Follow-up deliveries are made to the site to replenish supplies, as long as needed.

This will be an ongoing project for Goshen Baptist Association.  Since all items need to be inventoried to make sure there are enough of all items needed for packing day, for the next collection, we will be seeking to collect all items beforehand, so they can be sorted and counted.  This allows the coordinators time to shop and fill in the needed items which have not been received.  Our next packing day is planned for Saturday, March 9, 2024.

Keep collecting the specified baby items.