3 Years

As we celebrate three years of operating this month, think about this for a second: The first baby that came to In My Shoes when we opened on September 19, 2017 is now 3 years old. It’s incredible. I talk about the following story a lot, still. Before we officially opened, we conducted an intake with one of our first moms. She was about 37 weeks pregnant, but asked what would happen if she were to give birth before moving into our home. The move-in date was about a week away. I told her that I’m sure she would move in before she had the baby. This mom proved me wrong, and gave birth two days later. A few days later, she moved into our home with her 6 day baby. We have never been without a baby in the existence of In My Shoes.

 

Three Years Later

I’ve been excited for this three year mark for some time. For some reason, “three” holds a lot of credibility for me. Maybe it’s because of the Holy Trinity or because three is the magic number for some foundations to help fund organizations. Whatever the reason, I’m so proud that we have come this far. To date, we have provided over 9000 safe sleep nights to  47 moms. That’s 94 lives that have experienced a safe, welcoming place to call home. 

 

The community inside and outside of In My Shoes is growing. We could not be where we are today without the help of our volunteers, donors, and other supporters. It takes a village to raise a baby, and the same could be said about raising a non-profit organization. 

 

When Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary

Our organization is built upon so many small, sacrificial moments that by themselves seem very ordinary, but together are incredibly extraordinary. Our moms choose to give their babies life and sacrifice their bodies and their lives in order to provide for this baby. In many cases, our moms are also striving to reunite with other children who are not in their care for different reasons. The sacrifices that the moms make each day for their children is incredible to witness.

 

I think about the sacrificial “yes” that our Residential Core Team Members give when they commit to a year of service to live with our moms and babies. We have women who have studied engineering, psychology, international studies, history, etc and could get well-paying jobs out of school or have given up well-paying jobs to come serve with us. As part of their first “yes,” this often means they also say “yes” to getting up in the middle of the night to take a mom in labor to the hospital or have a difficult conversation late at night. 

 

Committed Community

The last few months amidst a global pandemic, we have experienced very unique challenges. I thought, “what if our team leaves, what if everything we built comes crashing down?” We can boast of our accomplishments today because our team stuck with our mission, even if things looked very different for a while. The Residential Core Team members were OUR frontline workers as they remained in their positions despite not knowing exactly what the threat of this illness was. They continued to walk side by side with our women to support them and to provide a community to them when so many others were left isolated. Their commitment to providing this community is some of the most selfless work I have seen. 

 

To date, we have not been able to operate at our full capacity due to the lack of Core Team Members and funding. Just a couple of weeks ago, our final Residential Core Team Member signed on which will allow us to house 18 moms at one time. We are so excited to be able to taste this goal and we are even more excited that we will be able to impact the lives of the moms and babies that need a place like In My Shoes. 

 

Written by Executive Director, Maria Puccini