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Volunteers at Warm Hearts, Warm Babies
Warm Hearts, Warm Babies

How a Local Organization is Caring for Newborn Babies

Volunteers help Warm-Hearts Warm Babies serve Colorado babies in need.

In 1996, Victoria Swain gave birth to a stillborn baby in Brighton, weighing just four ounces and measuring only eight inches in length. At the time, the hospital was not equipped to provide a blanket or outfit for the infant. Through her grief, Swain saw a great need she could help fill. She began recruiting volunteers, crocheting booties, and collecting materials, so grieving parents could have something beautiful in which to wrap their babies.

From Swain’s efforts, Warm Hearts-Warm Babies (WHWB) was incorporated in 2000, with the goal of serving Colorado’s tiniest citizens.

“We try to offer something positive along with all the negative, and tell people that their babies do mean something to somebody,” says Glenda Bredeson, vice president of the board of WHWB.

Now headquartered in Arvada, the organization provides handmade items for premature babies in the NICU and assembles care packages for newborn babies in need. The volunteers also make clothing and blankets for babies who pass away. Eleven volunteer work groups from Brighton to Colorado Springs and everywhere in between regularly knit, sew, crochet, and quilt items for babies. Volunteers without sewing skills come to help, too.

Each month, WHWB delivers about 100 layettes—baby care packages including about 25 items for babies in need—to area hospitals, pregnancy centers, and other organizations. It also distributes about 200 afghans and quilts per month. When babies in need arrive, staff at the designated locations can distribute WHWB’s items free of charge. It serves about 50 agencies total at different times throughout the year. “We never tell any organization ‘no’ if we can help it,” says Bredeson.

Bredeson says the continued generosity of so many people has kept the completely volunteer-run organization going.

“Sometimes we get low financially and we never know what supplies we might have from day to day,” Bredeson says. “But then the donations come in. You’ll hear people around here say, ‘Oh, there’s God again.’ ”

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