Give big. I am a true philanthropist. While I think people can be real fuckheads pains in the neck, at the root of all I believe a good portion of people are good and true as part of their nature. So my love of humankind is probably part of my cat nature as a Leo. I have every intention of making the world a better place one person and soul at a time, albeit I will probably die a failure, but I WILL do what I can in this life. I would hate for karma to come back and be a bit too pissed off and reincarnate me as a roll of toilet paper to wipe up other assholes shit.
Onto my story. I recently saw a posting on my twin mom club board that a mom in northern Arizona is in need. She has twins, not a part of any club or ours, and she is in need of formula because WIC only covers so much and the rest she has to attempt to purchase on her own. Now if you a mother who formula fed, you know pretty darn well how EXPENSIVE formula is for one baby….tack on an extra mouth. I tandem breastfed the twins for 10 glorious months before I thought I would lose my mind by never seeing the light of day and I made the decision to slowly wean them to formula for the last month and half before their one year birthday. During that time can I tell you how much formula I went through?
Every 3 days we opened a new Costco size can of Enfamil. COSTCO size folks. Biggie size. Super Size! And if I recall the price was close to $40 a can. One can, every three days times $40. Can you say I need a loan to feed those kids?
Now I can totally empathize with this mother, I feel for her. The sad thing, there are no programs other than ours right now that I have been able to find that can help her. As I said, she is on WIC. But WIC is only designed for one newborn, not TWO! So I am coming to you all. For help. Do you know of any other programs, opportunities, freebies, support to help a mother? I know she is not alone, we have received several requests and as my duty and position within in the club as donations coordinator I am gathering donations for these mothers as a “Milk Closet” per se that will include the expensive necessities to care for two infants. If you know of any programs, companies, opportunities to help these women in our communities who struggle to care and feed their children please let me know or hey if you want to make a donation let me know that too and I will provide you with our IRS and Federal 501(c)(3) non profit tax ID information.
Eeeks, I don't know of any other organizations but I will definitely keep my eyes open for her! She may want to talk to WIC as well…I had to use their help with my first child many moons ago, and they give you checks based on each child…so she should be getting formula for each child, not just for the family, and if she's not, something's wrong there. I wish her the best of luck!
I don't know of any other programs, but a friend used WIC when her twins were born, and they gave enough for both. Maybe she needs to go talk to DSS.
Hmmm…that is a tough one, since things are a little diff here in Canada.
But, did she contact the formula companies and join their multiples programs?
I know when I had the Twins, many companies sent me a ton of freebies and coupons {formula included}. In fact almost all of the Formula companies sent me 2 full cases {6-8 cans} of their formula plus hefty coupons.
I also heard of Twin Moms contacting their chosen {formula} company time and again, and they were happy to send more coupons after the fact.
Every little bit helps right?
You know, it strikes me that Enfamil can use the good press right now with their reason law suit. Any way of going straight to the reps of Enfamil to plea for help?
Oh, one other question – anyone know if unopened cans of powdered formula have expiration dates? Because I'm sure that there might be folks out there that have cans sent to them by various sampling companies that haven't used theirs or don't need them any more and they can send them on.
I actually have 3 cans of unopened formula plus one sample that I got from Wal-Mart of generic. Can I mail them to her or no? I can't stand to throw it away.