85. ‘Joyful Welcome’ and Supplying Essential Baby Items to Newborns and their Mothers (with Chair, Brenda Sanford)

‘Joyful Welcome’ started after the founder saw a father leaving the hospital with his new baby wrapped in his coat. She decided to start making welcome kits with essential baby items for newborns and their families and distributing them to her local hospital. 

My guest, Brenda Sanford, is now the chair of ‘Joyful Welcome’. She learned about what they do at a local church meeting, and felt inspired to start volunteering. It was a short time later when the founder thought she might have to shut down her nonprofit, and Brenda courageously stepped into the role of leading ‘Joyful Welcome’ and keeping it going.

One of the theme’s of this episode is finding joy in quiet service, and that is most definitely what Brenda and her fellow volunteers do. They’re a small but mighty group of beautiful grandma’s who meet weekly to assemble these gifts that they now distribute to 14 different hospitals. I also loved learning from Brenda many different ideas for how smaller groups and nonprofits like hers can raise money or get donations for their cause.

Listen to be inspired and truly see that even a small group of people can help others in beautiful ways.

Links mentioned in the episode:

Joyful Welcome Website

Joyful Welcome Instagram

Joyful Welcome Facebook

Joyful Welcome Amazon Registry for Donations

Joyful Welcome Target Registry for Donations

Smith's Inspiring Donations Program

JustServe.org

Follow the podcast on social media:

Do Something More Instagram

Do Something More Facebook

Do Something More YouTube

Transcript

[00:00] Melissa: This episode of the podcast features Brenda Sanford. She's the chair of Joyful Welcome, a small nonprofit that makes newborn welcoming kits to give to new moms and distributes those to local hospitals.

[00:13] And one of the things I really love about this episode is, number one, the theme of quiet service and finding joy in that quiet service. And number two is all the ideas that Brenda sprinkles throughout this episode, even up to the very end, for ways that small nonprofit or other groups and organizations like hers can raise money or get donations to support their cause.

[00:39] I learned from her some new things that I had not heard before. And I think that would be a great benefit for any organization that's looking to raise money, get donations for the cause that matters to you.

[00:53] So here we are. Let's learn from Brenda Sanford.

[00:59] Welcome to the Do Something More podcast. The show all about service, where we highlight the helpers who inspire us all to do something more. If you're passionate about nonprofits or looking for simple ways to volunteer and give back to the causes that matter to you, this is the podcast for you.

[01:19] I'm your host, Melissa Draper. Stick around and I'll show you all the many ways anyone can truly make a difference in our world today.

[01:31] Melissa: Welcome to another episode of the podcast. And today we get to learn about this nonprofit, Joyful welcome, which they help through local hospitals, provide essential items for moms and babies, and, of course, motherhood.

[01:46] And that kind of service is near and dear to my heart. So I'm really excited to learn more about what they do and some of the stories they have with their organization.

[01:54] But I'd like to welcome to the podcast the chair of Joyful Welcome, Brenda Sanford. Brenda, welcome.

[02:00] Brenda: Thank you, Melissa. And I really appreciate you having me on your podcast, and I appreciate the work that you're doing and sharing what we do and the opportunities that there are in the community to serve.

[02:11] So thank you for having me.

[02:13] Melissa: Oh, most definitely. Why don't we start off, Brenda, Just give us a little introduction of yourself, and then we'll go into hearing about some more of the specifics of what Joyful welcome does.

[02:24] Brenda: So I live in South Jordan with my husband of 45 years, and we have three children and eight grandchildren. I grew up in Wyoming and Colorado, but I've lived here for 40 years, so Utah is my home.

[02:36] I started volunteering at a pretty young age. I was about 5th or 6th grade and lived in Wyoming at that time. I went door to door for pennies by the inch, which was the money for Primary Children's Hospital I love volunteering at my kids school and one year I put on a track and field day through the PTA because I remembered how much fun it was for me as a child.

[03:00] So that's kind of how I got started in volunteering.

[03:03] We raised our kids in Murray and when they were all grown, we decided that we'd move to a smaller place without so many stairs. And we weren't really in a hurry to do this, but I found a place.

[03:15] The first place I found was in South Jordan and I felt inspired to move there and I wasn't sure why. Finally convinced my husband to move. And it was in that ward that Joy Rolf, the founder of Joyful welcome, came to our Relief Society evening to talk about Joyful welcome and the good they were doing.

[03:34] So I was instantly interested in that and became involved in helping them put the bags together and deliver them to the hospitals. And after about a year of volunteering, Joy was no longer able to keep Joyful welcome running due to health issues.

[03:51] And since they were thinking of shutting it down, I took it over. Even though I had no experience in running a non profit, I found out there was a lot to do.

[04:00] Melissa: Right.

[04:02] I love that it started with you seeing it at a simple church meeting, having your heart, touch and now to have the courage to jump in and take charge. That's not something everybody would always be willing to do, but that's impressive what's.

[04:16] Brenda: Meant to be, right?

[04:18] Melissa: Well, I would love to hear a little bit more now about Joyful Welcome. What specifically do they provide? Just kind of take us through the logistics, a little bit of what you do.

[04:28] Brenda: Well, our mission statement is through local hospitals, Joyful welcome provides many of the essential items needed for a precious newborn baby to begin their life.

[04:39] And so, you know, everything we do revolves around that. Last year we gave out more than 900 bags and the bags cost about $100 per bag. We put 20 items, around 20 items in them.

[04:53] And last year we donated to 14 hospitals in Utah.

[04:57] Melissa: Wow.

[04:57] Brenda: We give them to the social workers and they determine who gets them, whoever needs them. And they've been given to single moms, dads, low income families, a mom who didn't know she was pregnant, a grandma who adopted her grandchild at the last minute.

[05:16] And because of privacy issues, we don't hear from too many of the recipients. We do hear from our social workers that the recipients are always so grateful.

[05:26] Melissa: Oh, that's beautiful. What are do? Is it mostly diapers, clothing?

[05:32] Brenda: So the, the 20 items we put in diapers which are donated by the Utah Diaper Bank. Baby wipes, blankets. We have knitted, crochet, quilted, store bought. We put in PJs, or what do they call them, Sleep and plays.

[05:48] Now onesies, washcloth, baby wash or shampoo, hats, burp cloths, socks, a bib, a book and a stuffed animal. And then we try to put it together, if we can, as a theme.

[06:05] That means, yeah, if we have an elephant stuffed animal, we try to put in an elephant blanket, an elephant burp cloth, elephant book. That isn't always possible because we run off donations.

[06:18] So then we just kind of match them with color and we do a boy bag, a girl bag and a neutral bag. The neutral just has yellow and gray.

[06:26] We've been doing it well. Joy started it quite a few years ago. We started in an office in West Jordan and it was donated space and they ended up selling the office space so we had to move.

[06:43] And a social worker found us some donated space at Holy Cross West Valley in an old doctor's office.

[06:51] And luckily we'd been there for three years.

[06:54] All of us that put the bags together are all volunteers. Our office is only open Wednesday from 10 to 12 and there are eight of us. And because it's such a small office, that's all we can have come in and put the bags together.

[07:06] Of course, we operate by donations. And I'll have bags of blankets or burp cloths, hats just dropped on my porch in South Jordan. And more often than not, I don't even know where they came from.

[07:17] Sometimes I can tell people thank you, but sometimes it's just quiet thank you to myself because I don't know where they came from. But we always seem to be blessed with donations.

[07:27] Melissa: So as you've been talking, that seems to be a theme here is this idea of quiet service.

[07:35] Many nonprofits, people do directly work with their recipients or they see who's receiving those services. But as you said, in your case, you're quietly serving, you don't see the recipients, you don't see the effects of that.

[07:48] And it sounds like those that are donating, it's the same. And I think that is so important to remember with service that quiet service is just as important as seen service.

[07:59] Do you want to speak on that for a little bit?

[08:02] Brenda: Well, occasionally we do get a note from a recipient, not too often, but one that we received a few years ago. I just wanted to read it said, good morning. I am a mom of a two and a half week old daughter and a grateful recipient of a joyful welcome Bag the baby clothes.

[08:18] And then she put in parentheses, some of them look handmade. Book diapers, et cetera, will be so helpful as we embark on our adventure into parenthood. Thank you for helping us to welcome our little girl into the world.

[08:30] So little notes like that that we don't get very often just touch our hearts and keep us going and bring us joy.

[08:36] I think a lot of reason we do it is to bring ourselves joy.

[08:39] Melissa: Right. Do you ever visualize sometimes, even though it is quiet, service the recipients?

[08:46] Brenda: Yeah. And I think everyone that volunteers does because they try so hard to match it, you know, and they're just always thinking about the joy that these recipients will receive by opening these bags.

[08:56] And I have to remind them. I'm like, these people aren't expecting anything. So even if it doesn't match, they're grateful for anything they get. But my volunteers just want them so much to match and just look perfect because that's.

[09:11] That's where they receive joy.

[09:13] Melissa: I think that's something for us women. We want to put it together and have it look good and feel the love that comes from it.

[09:20] Brenda: Yes.

[09:21] I think my biggest why for doing this is the joy that I said that it brings. I see it in those that donate items. They are so excited to bring blankets or whatever they've made.

[09:34] I see it in those that volunteer that love putting the bags together. I see it in the social workers that are involved in handing those out. One of the main reasons, one of my main goals is to spread the good news and to tell your friends and family and church members community about joyful welcome, because there's always things we're in need of.

[09:56] Melissa: Why do you feel that that is so important to support those new mothers and their babies in this way?

[10:02] Brenda: I think it's because they need the help, you know, for whatever circumstance they're in. They're just grateful to get any kind of help at that time. And I think it's inspired.

[10:14] I think it's something I'm supposed to be doing and that these women otherwise wouldn't be getting brand new items. I do have a lot of people that'll say, you know, I've got this gently used blanket, and I'm like, it's a gift.

[10:25] You know, we take them into the hospitals and we give it as a gift. And so everything has to be new. So, yeah, I think it's the. The joy.

[10:34] Melissa: Very fitting to your name and your nonprofit. Have you had any challenges? I mean, of course, you talked about never running a nonprofit before.

[10:44] Brenda: Yes.

[10:44] Melissa: How I guess explain for those that might be wanting to jump into that adventure, how did you navigate some of that and educate yourself? And how have you overcome some of those other things that have come up along the way?

[10:58] Brenda: I think one of the ways I've done that is that the volunteers that I have been blessed with, I have a great secretary, have a great treasurer, and they do help me run it.

[11:10] I couldn't run it by myself if something happened to them. I couldn't. I'm past my 60s, and everybody else that volunteers is older than I am. And I think when I first started it, I thought, oh, this will be easy.

[11:23] We've got all these donations and we'll just, you know, And I had to learn through other nonprofits, just gathering information and going out there and searching for a better way to do it, a different way to do it, ways of getting donations.

[11:38] I'm always learning and, you know, they're always supportive of whatever project we're into next. I had my neighbors decided this year that they didn't want to do neighbor gifts, and so they all just donated gifts to Joyful Welcome.

[11:52] Melissa: Oh, that's such a great idea. I love that.

[11:54] Brenda: Isn't that neat? And that donation course, we count in everything we get so we know how much we get. That donation was $2,000 that they donated to me. My daughter, where she works, they put a Christmas tree up in their lobby, and employees were able to scan a QR code and donate to Joyful Welcome.

[12:16] It went through Amazon or Target, and they just picked out an item and it was sent to me. So those little projects, which I kind of have to set up in Spearhead, very helpful to us.

[12:27] Melissa: So many different ways to reach out to the community and to see those efforts.

[12:33] And I love that you shared that you're all 60 and up. I just picture this room full of beautiful grandma assembling these.

[12:40] Brenda: And that is true. That's. We are all grandmas and come from different walks of life and different reasons that they're there and. But all receiving joy and doing the.

[12:50] Melissa: Service, and I love that, too. I feel like, as you mentioned, you know, you reaching out to other nonprofits as I've done this podcast. So so many of them just want to see each of you succeed.

[13:02] There's no. No competition. No, you know, you just. You're all working together to help in the many different ways you feel inspired to help.

[13:10] Brenda: Yeah, I actually had a couple years ago, I had a family that donated, like, a big box of adult hats, knitted hats. Grandma had been Making them for years. She passed away.

[13:21] They didn't know what to do with them. They donated them to us. They're too big for us to use. So I donated them to another nonprofit that I knew could use them.

[13:28] And, and I've had that happen to me where they've gotten baby hats and they don't use those. And so, you know, we've gotten those from other nonprofits. So it's pretty great.

[13:37] Melissa: What have you seen be the biggest benefit for you and these women you've worked with as you've worked on this?

[13:45] Brenda: I think that again, it just goes back to the Joy. You know, I. I see it in those that volunteer. They will bring items that they've made. You know, we'll bring.

[13:53] They'll realize we're short of burp cloths or blankets. And they love making items like that. They love, you know, there's some of them that deliver the bags. And again, they get to talk to the social workers.

[14:04] And so I think the benefit has been just. They love to serve and they know every Wednesday we're there and we're working together and we just enjoy each other's company and do a great service.

[14:15] Melissa: I love that idea of having a regular set time you meet together to serve. And. And I just had one more thought. Is as you've think your website said, you started in one hospital, now you've moved to 14.

[14:29] How have you gone about doing that? Has it mostly been through social workers or nurses?

[14:34] Just for those that, that are wanting to work similarly in the community. How have you expanded that way? How do you go about reaching out to a hospital to get your donations put in there?

[14:44] Brenda: Well, Joy, when she started it, she started it in her basement and she had heard of a father leaving a hospital with the baby wrapped in his coat. And so she started at Jordan Valley Hospital.

[14:59] When I took it over, I had to go up to the U for something and I thought, oh, I'll bet they could use these bags. And so I contacted that social worker and she said, you bet.

[15:08] And they take quite a few bags. I think they take 20 bags a month. And then she had a few of them lds and I think IH were on her list.

[15:19] But there was a time there where I had extra bags. We just had more than we needed to hand out. So I would just contact a hospital like I contacted American Fork or we have them go down to Moab.

[15:30] One of my volunteers goes down there and does volunteer work and she contacted them. I have a volunteer that her daughter lives in San Pete So she contacted that hospital and they said, you bet.

[15:42] So almost everybody we've contacted and said, yes, we would love them bring.

[15:46] Melissa: Right.

[15:46] Brenda: And then when they run out, they call me, like, we're out, we need some more. So, yeah, it's, it easily expands itself. It's just getting the donations to keep it going.

[15:57] So.

[15:58] Melissa: Right.

[15:59] Well, I love that your nonprofit shows that even a small group of people can band together, make a difference and find places where they're needed.

[16:11] So we have, we have listeners from all over. And so I love to, on each episode, give some kind of advice or encouragement.

[16:21] So I have lots of different ways I thought we could go with this. Either, of course, advice that you want to give for anyone that's wanting to maybe support new mothers and babies in their own community, or maybe how to go about starting something like this if it doesn't exist, or your advice on just jumping in and adventurously starting this journey of being over a non profit and not letting what you don't know keep you from doing and making a difference.

[16:48] So I'd love to hear on both of those, your thoughts.

[16:51] Brenda: Yeah, And I think it is. You have to feel somewhat inspired to do that because it is a lot of work. I was told, oh, it pretty much runs itself. And I learned very quickly it does not.

[17:03] But yeah, I really believe that you have to know that it is something you're supposed to be doing because it is hard work. And there's times where you're like, I'm done, you know, and I've said that, you know, we don't have very many donations.

[17:17] I don't know how much longer we're going to keep going. And then lo and behold, there shows up donations and I go, thank you, Lord. I know it's your hand.

[17:25] And that's why we're keeping this going.

[17:27] Melissa: Yeah.

[17:28] Brenda: Amazing. As far as starting it, I think there's so many organizations that you can just help, you know, if you look around and there's something you're interested in, you know, go on, just serve.

[17:39] You'll find lots of organizations you can donate to or volunteer with or I think that's the better way to go than to try and start one because it seems like there's a nonprofit for everything.

[17:50] Melissa: Yes, yes. I love that you mentioned justserve.org, we've mentioned that on the podcast and I've had multiple people say that, say, before you start something, just check to see if it's already happening, if someone's already doing it in your community.

[18:05] And then Join your efforts to that cause.

[18:08] Brenda: That matter is true.

[18:10] Melissa: And yeah, we all feel called to do different things, as you said, but when it's there, that can definitely be a support to us. Well, Brenda, where can people find more about Joyful welcome if they want to donate or get involved in any way?

[18:25] Brenda: Let's see, we're registered at Amazon and Target, so if you could just go on their websites. It's mailed directly to my house.

[18:33] If you have a Smith's grocery card and a lot of people don't know this, you can link your card to our organization, to Joyful welcome under their Inspire program. And that money, it's a small percentage, but that money is donated to us and we use it for our utilities and insurance and operating costs.

[18:51] Smith's under their Inspire program. It's a great way to not even do anything. It just, you know, when you shop, we get a small percentage of.

[18:58] Melissa: That's the first time I've heard about that program, so I'm so glad you mentioned it.

[19:04] Brenda: Yeah, I wish I could tap into it more because I thought, man, that's, you know, it's great that Smith does that. Amazon did that for a little bit and then they stopped.

[19:11] But yeah, it's great. We, every three months we'll get, you know, a couple hundred dollars just from people shopping.

[19:17] Melissa: That's great.

[19:17] Brenda: So our website is Joyful welcome dot org. Everything about it is us is on there. Instagram is at Joyful Welcome. We're on Instagram. I don't manage that too well because I don't do well with technology.

[19:33] Melissa: There's good things on there.

[19:35] Brenda: Right? Right.

[19:37] And then of course, just serve. My email is b.sanford0805sn.com and you could just email me with questions. My phone number's on our website, so is my secretary. So call anytime, send us an email.

[19:55] Love to answer questions. They kind of started this as having a baby shower, but it's kind of evolved to people just like I had a school call me and say, we're doing parent teacher conference.

[20:06] Can we just have the people donate baby wipes? And I'm like, you know, so we're trying to get it more to just, you know, specific. You know, if your group could just collect these donations, that seems to work better than a whole big baby shower.

[20:18] So, you know, any, any new donations, you can go to Dollar Store and get a $25 baby wash. We'd love it. They have washcloths there. A lot of people that like to crochet or knit.

[20:31] We welcome any of that. And yeah, we'd love, love to have any donations.

[20:35] Melissa: Yeah. One of the things I love that you've shared in this episode over and over again is all these simple ways to donate for any organization.

[20:45] So I think anyone that's wanting to just spit small donations into their regular life, this is a great episode and it's given us. And I've learned I did not know about Smith's Inspire program.

[20:57] I love your neighbor gifts idea. That's such a great idea. So, so many good things.

[21:02] Brenda: Yeah, it has been, it's been wonderful. It's been wonderful to see the donations we get and the reasons that people do donate. And so, yeah, we love doing it.

[21:11] Melissa: Yeah, we love it. Well, thank you so much, Brenda, for being willing to come on the podcast today and share more about the good that you do.

[21:19] Brenda: Well, thank you for doing the podcast. Appreciate you spreading the news.

[21:23] Melissa: That concludes my interview with Brenda Sanford, the chair of Joyful welcome.

[21:29] And I'm going to leave links to all of the places she mentioned for her nonprofit so you can go and learn more about her or donate to their cause. And I just love that picture of donating to this beautiful group of grandmas that are sitting there and putting these kits together.

[21:47] And I'm sure as they put those together, they love picturing all the beautiful mothers that are going to receive those for their babies. So just a circle of giving there.

[21:57] Easy to get involved. And I'm also going to leave a link to the Smith's Inspiring Donations program that Brenda mentioned. I had never heard of this before. She taught me about it.

[22:09] And I shop at Smith's.

[22:10] Melissa: So I'm so excited to go and.

[22:12] Melissa: Link my account support some of these organizations in my community. So I'm going to leave a link to that as well and encourage you to check that out. That can be a great way if you are a Smith shopper, especially to donate to organizations in your community.

[22:28] And I hope, of course, that you can share this podcast with a friend if you've been inspired by something you learned here today or follow the podcast on social media or of course, we always love good ratings and reviews.

[22:43] And as always this week, I hope that you can find a way to do something more to help lift, inspire or make a difference.