In support of the Perinatal Loss Unit at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Heartlove Photography will be creating and donating memory boxes again this year. Due to COVID-19, this will be a virtual event to raise the funds for the boxes.

JHH cares for almost 100 families each year suffering from stillbirth or early infant loss and provides 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. They rely on fundraising to purchase the boxes – since 2016 Heartlove Photography has held community events to decorate boxes and provided them 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 last year, 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.

As a virtual fundraising event, 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 www.heartlovephotography.com/memorybox until August 28, 2020