As I mentioned in my previous post, last night Carol of NY City Mama and I hosted a diaper drive/cocktail party at the beautiful Affinia 50 hotel in New York City. The event was organized through the Help A Mother Out (or HAMO) program and benefited the New York chapter of of Baby Basics, a non-profit organization that helps low-income working families in need.
The idea of donating diapers in particular came about in 2009 when co-founders Lisa Truong and Rachel Fudge had learned that diapers (which are not covered under social safety net programs such as WIC and Food Stamps) were the number one need for Moms and families who struggle daily to make ends meet. It was from this need that Help A Mother Out was born.
Thanks to HAMO, this year these diaper drives are being held and helping various local charities, not only in New York but all across the country.
Our diaper drive was held in The Affinia 50′s club room, which was both spacious and elegant. The Affinia Hotel believes it is important for each guest to “create their own experience”- and this experience at their hotel was no exception.
Our HAMO cocktail party guests, who were among what I consider to be some of NYC’s creme de la creme of Bloggers, were treated by the Affinia to a beautiful and delicious spread of hors d’oeuvres complete with dessert and wine station.
Photographer Alethea Fitzpatrick donated her time and her talent to help document the night’s festivities. Each guest in attendance brought a package of diapers – some even brought 2 or 3 boxes! We collected these diapers all in an adorable crib that the accommodating staff at The Affinia had set up for us.
By the nights end, our diaper crib was overflowing.
In addition to the diaper collection, we were also very fortunate to raise additional money for Baby Basic’s diaper needs through sponsored raffles- 8 in total! Our raffle tickets were sold 5 for $15 and guests were able to drop their tickets into any cup they’d like for their chance to win fabulous donated prizes.
Some of our prizes for the night included:
- 2 night stay at the Affinia Hotel (Perfect weekend get away!)
- Affinia BYOB Wine experience gift pack
- $50 Spa Finder Gift Certificates (Who doesn’t love a great spa day?)
- Toy Prize Packs, courtesy of The Big Toy Book
- $200 family photography gift certificate, by our event photog Alethea Fitzpatrick (whom you can see by these pictures has an amazing talent)
- Gift Certificate for a free personalized cake topper from You Cake (who also provided the beautiful cake for our event with the HAMO logo!)
- A diaper cake tower donated by 1-800-baskets
@Mommasgonecity & @dada_rocks
And just as we we were about to announce our raffle winners, one of our guest and fellow bloggers, Adam Cohen of Dada Rocks jumped in and announced he wanted to add his “SEO” web services to the raffle table which helped us sell even more tickets at the last minute!
Upon our final count, we proudly announced that we had successfully donated well over 400 diapers and additionally $400 towards diaper purchasing for Baby Basics through our raffles.
Brenda of Baby Basics graciously accepted the night’s donation on behalf of the organization and was so truly thankful for everyone’s generosity. It was beyond moving to hear her speak about the women and families that we were helping that night and was followed up by Carol’s account of her own past experience as a struggling single mother.
After we announced our raffle winners and donation totals everyone joined us by the fireplace to celebrate with our beautiful, personalized HAMO cake that was donated by our new favorite cake decorator You Cake.
Cake by: youcake.com
It was truly amazing to see the outpouring of generosity and a genuine desire to help, we received from not only from our sponsors but by those who came out to support the cause, … those who Carol and I are proud to call our friends.
Thank you to all of the bloggers in attendance: Monica/ Macaroni Kid, Jessica/ Mommas Gone City, JenRab/ NextKidThing, Isabel/ AlphaMom , Kim/ Mom In The City, Fredrick/ New York Dad Blog ,Michelle /MommaLioness, Nancy Horn/ Mommies With Style, Matthew/ Back 2 Go Forward, Ofelia/ OfeliaNJ, Holly/ The Culture Mom Blog ,Theresag/ My City Life
If you are interested in hosting a HAMO event in your city, you can contact HAMO here.
All photos from the event were taken by the talented Alethea Fitzpatrick, who is a NYC based baby, child and family photographer. Alethea is also running a giveaway/fundraiser to benefit Baby Basics. If you were unable to attend the event and are in the NYC area- this is a great opportunity to donate and get a chance to win some beautiful family photos!
Below you can see Alethea Fitzpatrick’s complete slide show from the event:
Special Thanks to our sponsors:
