Maine groups strive to make a difference Welcome Baby Boxes offer parents helping hand

OLD TOWN – Kristen Paul spent her 16th birthday Saturday at the library, decorating boxes and filling them with baby supplies. The Old Town High School sophomore said the Make A Difference Day project “takes priority over my birthday party.”

The Welcome Baby Boxes program, sponsored by the River Coalition, was one of nearly 40 such efforts held around the state as part of the national day of helping others sponsored each October by USA Weekend Magazine in partnership with the Points of Light Foundation.

“I feel a lot better here, helping, rather than just sitting around at home or being with friends,” said the Old Town girl. “Someone celebrated my birth, so I should celebrate the birth of the babies who will get these boxes.”

The Welcome Baby Boxes will be given to parents of newborns in Alton, Bradley, Greenbush, Indian Island, Milford and Old Town, the communities served by the River Coalition, according to Doris Seger, project co-facilitator of the coalition. The group planned to complete 50 boxes, filling each with a handmade baby quilt and receiving blanket along with diapers, bottles, wipes, bibs, powder, lotion and early-infancy parenting information.

The River Coalition, founded in 1994, is a group dedicated to ensuring safe homes and communities, drug-free schools and support systems for children and adults. It joined forces with two groups of girls who take part in programs sponsored by the Old Town Library.

GirlsTalk is a mentoring program that matches middle school girls with women from the community. The Chin Wag Society includes girls like Paul, who have graduated from GirlsTalk but who continue to meet as a book club. Ten girls in addition to a dozen adult volunteers filled the basement meeting room at the library Saturday morning.

Librarian Valerie Osborn read to the group a letter she had received from Catherine Munch of Bangor praising the project. Munch wrote that her son, now a junior at Bangor High School, was born 17 years ago in a small Texas community where she was a newcomer and had few friends.

She wrote that the hospital gave her a similar box of baby supplies, packed by members of a local church group.

“This little, anonymous gift meant a lot to me,” Munch wrote. “I thought often of the people who were wishing me and my baby well. … You are packing love, as well as baby items. Bless you!”

Seger said that due to confidentiality rules, the coalition would be unable to obtain the names of new parents from Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. She said that the group would rely on community members and new parents themselves to let the coalition know who needs the Welcome Baby Boxes. The coalition estimated that more than 200 babies are born to or adopted by area families each year.

Joan Kostakopoulos of Bangor is a mentor in the GirlsTalk program and helped decorate boxes for the project. Her daughter also celebrated a birthday Saturday – her first.

“It would have been lovely for me to get a box like this,” she said. “My daughter was adopted, so I didn’t have the traditional baby shower. I just got a phone call and was told, ‘Your baby’s ready.’ Any new mother would be really excited to get a box like this.”

Other projects in northern Maine included construction of a deck at Eastport Memorial Nursing Home, a sock drive in Boothbay Harbor for a homeless shelter, a window painting contest in Calais, and trash pickup along Route 1 in Belfast by members of the Game Loft, a local teen center, among others.

For more information on the Welcome Baby Boxes program, call the River Coalition at 827-8744.