At many hospitals, parents who have suffered stillbirth, miscarriage or early infant loss are given a keepsake box to hold their baby’s’ foot prints, photos, hat, outfit and other support items. It’s a place to keep the only tangible items that will touch their baby.
In 2016, Jill attended a meeting for staff of the Perinatal Loss Unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital to teach a little about bereavement photography. She learned that the nurses themselves were fundraising to purchase support items for families suffering stillbirth or early infant loss.
Hospitals provide each family with a box to hold small keepsakes from their hospital stay, including the infant’s foot prints, hat, hair clippings or other support items.
Because the support items are not billed to insurance or patients, the staff needed to cover the costs and Jill decided to make it a goal to donate 100 boxes.
That first year, she purchased the supplies herself. Boxes and simple embellishments wert provided to create beautiful hand-made memory boxes at her studio in Pasadena. More than 20 volunteers showed up to complete 100 hand-decorated boxes and they were delivered in December of 2016.
By the numbers:
About us:
Since then, Heartlove Photography has held community events to decorate boxes and provided more than 600 boxes to the hospital at no cost.
When I planned the first event, I just wanted to relieve the nurses of the extra task of fundraising to purchase boxes for their bereaved families. What I found was events like this give space for people to talk about their babies who never left the hospital, to say their names and tell their stories. It gives strangers the opportunity to pour love into a room that they have never been in. It raises awareness for stillbirth and infant loss. We can’t heal the broken hearts of bereaved parents – but we can send love and intention to making the time they spent with their baby, no matter how short, a beautiful memory.
Starting in 2020, we added other support items to each box – such as individual handprint kits, glass bottles for locks of hair, lace handkerchiefs and other items that could comfort parents or wrap a baby.
How can I help?
We invite you to give in honor of parents who have suffered early infant loss, stillbirth and miscarriage as well as the babies gone too soon. Please add a note to your donation if you’d like their names included in a public acknowledgement. In addition, if you’d like to include an affirmation, prayer or words of encouragement, we’ll add those messages as well.
Donations can be made (via PayPal) at PayPal.me/memoryboxes
Purchase items directly from our Amazon Wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1K06UVBO8RKWJ?ref_=wl_share
What does it cost?
- Box: As much as $10 but less with quantity discounts
- Handkerchief: $1.17
- Glass Bottle: $.28
- Air-dry Clay: $2.60
- Tin: $1.62
- Teddy Bear: $1.33
- Knit Bonnet: $2.47
- Birth Certificate Keepsake: $.41
= $19.88 per box