Thoughts From The Board

As Winter slowly fades to Spring in Colorado, I want to take this opportunity to remind you of an organization that I am proud to support. Nurturing Newborns is a nonprofit dedicated to providing respite care to families with infants and toddlers with delays, disabilities, issues from prematurity or serious illnesses. They have been supporting these needy families through specialized in-home respite care in the Denver metro area since 2008. We have been working under our nonprofit status in 2024 which has enabled us to apply for grants and work with community resources.

More than 95% of the families receiving respite care from Nurturing Newborns are low-income families and require funding assistance, and many of our families are caring for a child with long-term or permanent disabilities. On average, Nurturing Newborns provides approximately 30 hours of respite care to families. A large percentage of these families require more hours of respite care. As a nonprofit, additional funding would allow Nurturing Newborns to expand our reach to new families as well as provide more hours of respite care for our current families.

In-home respite care for fragile infants and toddlers is desperately needed in our community. From 2021 through 2023, the families referred to Nurturing Newborns for respite care increased by 186%. Currently, Nurturing Newborns is providing respite care to 34 families in the greater Denver community. More than 50% of their clients are single parent households, some have experienced domestic violence or abuse, and many are immigrants with no support system. Nurturing Newborns recently expanded their service area to include Boulder, Longmont, and Broomfield, and they continue to provide in-home respite care to families at no cost.

Since the beginning of 2024, the team at Nurturing Newborns has been busy submitting grant applications to organizations that support young children with challenges in our community. Grants that have been awarded to Nurturing Newborns include; Colorado Respite Coalition grant, Jefferson County Mill Levy Funds grant and a local Walmart grant. Applications are pending at Daniels Fund, The Buell Foundation, The Colorado Foundation, El Pomar, Colorado Health Foundation and The Denver Foundation.

In the coming weeks, Nurturing Newborns will be providing respite care to a young mother who is working hard to parent her two-year-old son who has delays and disabilities. She is a recovering addict, and they are living in a safe house. At Nurturing Newborns, the team has a saying about the families they serve. “IT IS NEVER JUST ONE THING”. Every one of the families supported through in-home respite care has multiple challenges in their lives, not the least of which is a disabled or fragile child.

Please consider donating to this unique and extraordinary nonprofit. They are the only organization that provides this type of support to families with vulnerable young children in our community, and they are MAKING A DIFFERENCE.