One Broad Street Plaza
PO Box 3253
Glens Falls, NY 12801
(518) 761-0300
Mini-Grants
SIX NETWORK-FUNDED MINI GRANTS UNDERWAY
GAP-Net’s Grants Review Committee met in September and awarded five, general mini grant awards and one in a new category, intended to build workplace support for lactating women. Below are listed this year’s grantees and a brief sketch of how they will use their mini grant.
The Adirondack Council for Birthing Women offers pregnancy, birth and postpartum services in the form of classes, doula services and workshops for women in Saratoga, Warren and Washington counties. The purpose of the Council’s mini grant is two-fold: to identify area businesses which are “breastfeeding friendly” and to increase community awareness and acceptance of breastfeeding. The Council will hold monthly “Breastfeeding Café’s” at restaurants and coffee houses who in turn will post a sticker prominently which states they support breastfeeding in their establishment. “Breastfeeding moms, new old and future” will have that monthly opportunity to gather together to share on the topic of breastfeeding.
Northern Adirondack Planned Parenthood, Inc. whose educators provide programming in schools throughout Clinton and Franklin Counties, will use mini grant funds to purchase a “Real Care Baby II” simulator (also known as a Baby Think It Over doll). The Real Care Baby not only mimics the sleeping, waking and crying states of a real baby, but software provides a downloadable report from the doll, so that students have an immediate summary of their parenting efforts. The mini grant will enable NAPP to bring a new, state-of-the-art doll to adolescents in more communities and to experience the nearly life-like requirements of parenting.
The Warren County WIC Program will develop a parent education tool called the “Hands-On WIC Kit” (created from a basic shoebox). After receiving the box, at each WIC visit parents will receive an age appropriate education “tool”, the objective(s) to be achieved and the guidelines for its’ use with the child in their home. As part of this collaborative effort, WIC will partner with Public Health to produce the guidelines and materials for the kits, the county’s Department of Public Works will spray paint shoeboxes donated by local retailers and a Girl Scout troop will help assemble parts of the kits as part of a community service project.
Research has recently focused on weight gain in pregnancy and the implications for development of obesity as a result of excess pregnancy weight gain. The Clinton County Health Department in collaboration with the Clinton County Be Active Program will use grant funds to develop, advertise and implement a perinatal fitness (walking) program. Enrollment will be through both the WIC and the MOMS programs. Women living in rural areas face extra hurdles such as adverse weather, lower incomes and lack of transportation which may effect the development of a physically active lifestyle. This mini grant is easily individualized, low cost and is being offered to women during the perinatal period, when many individuals are amenable to making healthier choices in their lives.
Essex County Public Health will use mini grant funding to purchase and implement the Strong Families program (a parenting education curriculum developed by the Albany Citizens Council on Alcoholism and Other Chemical Dependencies, Inc.). The curriculum will initially be offered to clientele of Families First, a not-for-profit, parent designed system of support for families in need, based in Elizabethtown.
Adirondack Medical Center is addressing “building workplace support for lactating women” by expanding the convenient, private, comfortable lactation environment that it currently has at its Saranac Lake site, to both its Lake Placid and Tupper Lake locations as well. Grant funds will be used to purchase equipment such as a hospital-grade breast pump, mini refrigerators and Boppy pillows (crescent-shaped to help support babies as they feed). Of equal importance will be the writing of a policy concerning the use of lactation space and equipment and the creation of an informational flyer the HR department will use in its maternity leave packet. Questionnaires will illicit feedback from women using the policy and new spaces, as to whether having the room encouraged them to breastfeed or to breastfeed longer.
GAP-Net Mini Grants are awarded annually. For further information, contact Program Coordinator Jackie Avignon at: (518)-761-0300, Ext. 217.
