About a month, if you’ve got a great idea and a group of dedicated, accomplished Shaker moms to work on it. QA:: SHAKER LIFE | SPRING 2017 49 O hio ranks near the top in the national infant mortality rate, especially among African Americans. Five Shaker Heights women have taken the first step to help reduce that catastrophic statistic. How long does it take to start a non-profit organization? Blair Barnhart-Hinkle, Celina Cunanan, Elizabeth Dreyfuss, Sarah Garver Megenhardt, and Ellen Loughan gave birth this past October to Babies Need Boxes Ohio, which provides safe sleep spaces and childcare products to expectant mothers whose babies may be at risk of sleep-related death. Their goal is to reduce infant mortality while providing support to new parents. The program is modeled on Finland’s Baby Box tradition, which successfully reduced the country’s infant mortality rate from one of the worst in the 1930s to one of the best in the world today. BNB Ohio was the second program of its kind in the U.S., after Twin Cities-area resident Danielle Selassie introduced the concept to Minnesota in 2015. The need here is great. In 2015, Ohio ranked 45th in the nation for infant mortality, with an overall rate of 7.2 deaths per 1,000 live births. Moreover, there is a large racial disparity between white babies (5.5) and black babies (15.1). That means that in 2015, a black infant born in Ohio in 2015 was more than three times as likely to die as a white one. Tragically, the rate in the City of Cleveland is even worse – 20 deaths per 1,000 births in 2015, according to the Ohio Department of Public Health. Hathaway Brown Early Childhood Educator Elizabeth Dreyfuss, and her 10-yearold daughter, Lily, wanted to help make a difference for some of these young families. Lily recalls being excited at the idea of making change. “That’s a big thing for me. It would help lives. Maybe it seems like infant death doesn’t happen a lot, but my mom tells me it does.” Lily’s mom continues, “I had heard back in graduate school about how Finland supports infant development and parents, and I had also seen the BBC article ‘Why Finnish Babies Sleep in Cardboard Boxes.’ I believe that a society that supports all mothers and children is going to thrive and do well.” Since 1937, the Finnish government has given all expectant mothers a maternity package consisting of clothing, outdoor gear, bathing products, bedding, and a small mattress. It’s packed in a lightweight, safe, recyclable, portable cardboard box that becomes baby’s first bed. The baby box is designed to give all children in Finland, regardless of background, an equal start in life, and Finnish families love it. Dreyfuss suggested that Lily make a pitch to fund a Baby Box program at a girls’ giving event last summer. When the group decided to fund a different charity, Lily was crushed. At that point, Dreyfuss contacted Selassie in Minnesota, to find out what would be involved in starting a chapter in Cleveland. “Danielle said, ‘Get a board of trustees, get a collection space and storage space together, and let me know.’ A lot of people call her, but very few follow through. We did it really fast, thanks to the most exceptional group of women I’ve ever seen.”
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