Librarian Esther Kirby at the Corner Brook City Library emailed the provincial office of Books for Babies® in early Fall to ask if we would like to provide a display on the reference-children’s floor of the city library.

The Corner Brook City Library features a Books for Babies® display

Since the middle of October, the two large display cases and two smaller cases on the stairwell hold Books for Babies® materials. A tote bag and its contents of board book, calendar, handbook, growth chart, pamphlets and brochures take up one side of the large case. The other side showcases the “birthday year” books for children aged 1 to 4 years that some Chapters provide to their families during parties or special events each year. Add a few toys as props and there’s Books for Babies® .

Getting Our Success Organized
Wouldn’t it be nice to have easy access to how many babies received our tote bags? Where do these families live? Were the babies girls or boys? When were they born? Did they receive ‘birthday year’ follow-up books?

A province-wide database of all this information will become a reality when Books for Babies® delivery sites return their data forms to the provincial office. We already have over 500 entries!

How can we use this information? The provincial office and each Chapter will be able to show facts and figures that promote their activities, support their requests for funding and, in general, show others and each other the success of Books for Babies® volunteers throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.

Cathy Ivany & Maureen Kennedy

Ms. Ivany was pleased to provide our program with corporate sponsorship that will offset 60% of the production cost of the tote bags used to deliver the initial package of materials to new mothers and parents.

Maureen presented Ms. Ivany with a sample Books for Babies® tote bag, “birthday year” books, accompanying newsletters and a presentation portfolio about our program complete with a 10-minute Power Point presentation on CD-ROM.

Ms. Ivany traveled to Halifax the following week to do her own presentation to colleagues at 3M Canada. The slideshow, binder of materials, books and tote bag provided her with plenty of tangible examples of how their sponsorship is valued by our program.

It is through building financial connections within the business and service communities that we can control the rising costs of our program and keep those costs as low as possible for our volunteer Chapters. This, in turn, keeps Books for Babies® free to families.