What Breaks Your Heart
When Kelly heard Glennon say, “Find what breaks your heart and that will be your purpose,” she knew she needed to serve NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) families. Both her children, born three years apart, spent time in the NICU. She told us, “It’s a parent’s nightmare to see your child fighting to live and feel so helpless.” So in 2014, Kelly started a parent support group on Facebook for the parents at her local hospital. Out of that love project, she founded Mommy Hubbard’s NICU Cupboard, NFP, a non-profit that provides care packages to each new family as they are admitted to the NICU and on holidays. The packages are full of journals, snacks, hand lotion, and hand sanitizer, and more. The packages represent hope and love, and show these warrior families that we see them and cherish them.
Recently, through Together Rising, you sent Kelly a $3,000 grant to fuel her work for these warrior families, and you spent an additional $2,000 to provide critical items for the NICU in her community. Ashley, a Together Rising volunteer, worked directly with Kelly to determine the supplies most critically needed by the hospital.
Kelly spent Easter of 2014 in the NICU with her precious Ruby, and this year she is back — this time to bring comfort to the warrior families spending this Easter in NICU nursing their own precious babies. She posted this thank you from Mommy Hubbard’s NICU to you:
“We were awarded a grant from Glennon Doyle Melton‘s international nonprofit, Together Rising. We were asked to spend a portion of the grant on items specifically to assist the parents in the NICU. We chose 5 Rock ‘N Play sleepers, 5 baby swings, and 40 blankets for the NICU babies. We also wanted to offer something special for the families in the NICU over Easter, as we were in 2014. So, we decided to give adorable Easter hats to the babies. Thank you, Ashley and Together Rising, for this amazing grant! The picture is of our Ruby in the NICU on Easter 2014 in an adorable bunny hat!”
Thank you, Kelly, for showing up. Thank you for not running away from your heartbreak — but running toward it — to bring comfort to those fighting the same battle you fought.
Friends, find what breaks your heart, and turn that heartache into purpose. You may start your own non-profit like Kelly, or you may organize a one-time project in your community. For those of you who want to turn your love into fuel but aren’t sure how, you can raise money for Together Rising and its mission through our peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns. Click here to learn more! https://togetherrising.org/peer-peer-fundraising-faqs/