When I was a little kid, I loved the water! Sometimes my parents would pull out the kiddy pool or the slip 'n slide (remember those?) and my sister and I would spend hours splashing and having a blast. I still remember the bathing suit I wore when I was just a tiny tot. It was bright pink and had a picture of Miss Piggy on the front (thanks mom), but I loved it! Those memories have stuck with me for decades. This week, when we put out the baby and toddler swim wear in our "clothing shop," all of those great memories came flooding back.

It's great to know that the babies and toddlers we help will have a bathing suit this summer. Hopefully, when they grow up, they'll remember exactly what it looked like, and have a million great memories to go along with it.

By volunteering, they get to see firsthand how Infant Crisis Services is impacting the lives of our tiniest and neediest citizens of our community.

To our board members: Thanks for serving in so many ways!

Not only does Infant Crisis Services help babies and toddlers in need, we also help connect their families to additional resources, so they are better equipped to get out their crisis. Every time we see new clients Meg meets with them about to discuss other services they may need. During the short survey inquiring about additional resources, one of the women wrote the words “domestic violence." Meg gave her as much information as possible on the topic, and directed her to other organizations in Oklahoma that would be able to help her get back on her feet. In talking with the woman and her friend who accompanied her, we quickly realized, despite their differences, the two had similar pasts. Both had escaped domestic abuse. Both were staying at the Salvation Army to seek a safer life for themselves and their children. Both found a friend in the midst of a very dark situation. Naomi and Karla were brave enough to leave their situations and brave enough to share their stories.

These woman aren't alone. Around the world, one in three women is a victim of abuse. If you are being abused by a family member there is help.

It may not be the most impressive garden. Currently, we are only growing tomatoes and cucumbers, but as someone who has always wanted to try her hand at growing produce, this was exciting news for me!

Now that we are finally done with winter (hopefully) it is time to plant our vegetables, and we had some great helpers lend a hand.

A group of volunteers from the Disney Store came out this week to dig, till and fill our three small planter boxes.

They brought the cutest little helper on the planet too! Her name is Layla, and she is full of personality! She wore a Disney princess shirt, carried a bucket and shovel and sang Taylor Swift songs while she worked. Now, here is the best part of the story: Layla is a former client. It is so great to see her thriving in life, knowing at one point, we helped her in a time of need. It's also great to see her at such a young age already on the path to helping others. 

This group was so much fun to have at Infant Crisis Services. We are so appreciative for all of their hard work to help our little garden and our littlest citizens grow!

That's why our entire staff took a course this week on communication styles. The class was taught by Teresa Fugitt, the senior human resources learning and development specialist with Devon Energy Corporation and Ron Prince, owner of Prince Ciples, Inc.

It was interesting and very helpful to learn about how different people communicate, how to recognize social cues and how to make adjustments to our own social styles to be better communicators.

We would like to thank Teresa and Ron for the informative and fun training session!

The video is meant to showcase the ways in which our organization collaborates with Variety Care to further expand the impact in our community.

For the past two years, Infant Crisis Services has partnered with Variety Care, a comprehensive community health center that provides affordable health care to uninsured or under-insured Oklahomans.

Variety Care refers clients to us when they assist a family who is in need of our services as well. We even have a branch location inside Variety Care on Northwest 10th Street.

"It's a great partnership," said Infant Crisis Services Executive Director Miki Farris, "We both have the same objective, to help families; and by working together we're making the best of what's been given to us and meeting the need in a bigger way."

The video will be used by Variety Care for marketing and fundraising purposes.

At times nonchalantly standing by the stroller, or playing with blocks nearby.  I also observed him gently blocking other toddlers that came a little too close to his precious cargo.  His mom, Melissa, said he was a great big brother.  Isn’t it interesting how soon children learn their roles in the family? 

His older sister, Marissa, was not the least bit concerned about her little sister…she had Justice who was handling that job beautifully.  I think Makalyla will always have someone watching over her.  I bet Justice will be a terrific big brother all of his life. 

Melissa has a lot on her plate providing for her children, and she is very grateful for the occasional assistance we provide.  We are very grateful to be able to step in and help when families have nowhere to turn.  Thank you Justice for making my day!

Thursday, I was privileged to meet a woman who was all three of those inspirations in one.

Tamara Larin Anttila spent the morning at Infant Crisis Services handing out free books to parents in our lobby.

It is a place Tamara knows very well. In 2005, she and her husband had just moved to Oklahoma from Colorado with their three young children. The family was struggling just to pay the bills, with a toddler and newborn twins, they turned to Infant Crisis Services.

"Infant Crisis Services was there in a time when we needed help," Tamara explained. 

Eight years have passed since the family first came to us. Tamara now has three healthy boys, a 10-year-old and 8-year-old twins. Her husband eventually got a job as a firefighter and she started her own business. Although, they've overcome the crisis that once brought them to us, they never forgot the help they received during that time. 

So Tamara wanted to give back in a way that was personal to her.

"My passion for reading was born out of having three small children. You spend many late nights and early mornings awake. Reading motivated me, and it was an escape," she explained. 

That's why Tamara joined World Book Night, a movement of 25,000 volunteers who give away books to people who don't regularly read.

Tamara selected the book "The Language of Flowers" to hand out, an inspiring story about a young orphan woman who overcomes the negative experiences in her life, and learns to express herself through flowers.

Tamara's hope is that by volunteering her morning giving away books, she can provide a little inspiration and a little comfort for other moms in their time of crisis.

Seeing these precious babies in their NBA gear made me think about the potential in each of them. Maybe one of these babies WILL grow up to play a professional sport... We might have a future Russell Westbrook of Kevin Durant in our playroom right now. We could be helping an infant who will someday discover a cure for cancer or run for political office. Perhaps there is is a toddler in our playroom who will someday design skyscrapers or write a best-selling novel. We may be helping future teachers, lawyers, bankers, actors, journalists, doctors or scientists. The possibilities are endless.

Our hope at Infant Crisis Services is to provide a better future for these babies. By feeding and diapering our tiniest citizens today we are helping them to grow up stronger, healthier and smarter. 

At Infant Crisis Services, this is a daily initiative. We have always been passionate about preserving the environment for the future generations that we serve. That's why we started the "Ga-Ga for Green" campaign.

Every staff member has a special trash can designated for recyclable items, and as you can see, we use them!

Every day we strive to give babies and toddlers a better life, and through this small recycling initiative we hope to leave them a better world as well.

Happy Earth Day!

The Infant Crisis Services Young Professionals Board held a social mixer Thursday evening at Picasso Cafe in the Paseo Arts District. About 40 people came out to support babies and toddlers in need. Many brought donations of diapers and baby items and were entered in a raffle to win gift cards to local businesses.

The Young Professionals Board holds happy hours every other month to raise awareness and funds for Infant Crisis Services. The next event will be held at 5:30 p.m. on June 20 at Mamasita's.

Many of those diapers are donated, others we buy in bulk. Our awesome volunteers are often tasked with neatly assembling those diapers in packs of 36. And two of them have it down to an art!

Mother/daughter duo, Shannon and Janice, (or as we affectionately call them: Shannice) are diaper packing pros!  So we created a little competition, all in good fun. Shannice challenged volunteers from Sprint to a contest, to see who could create the most diaper packs in a 30 minutes.

Team Sprint and Team Shannice each recruited a third volunteer, and then on the count of three, the Diaper Pack Off began! They had to separate the diapers into bundles of 36, sack them, tape them off, and write the diaper size on the sack.

In the end both teams did really well, but Team Shannice out packed Team Sprint, to win the challenge.

All together, the two teams packed 4,200 diapers in under 27 minutes! Despite the competitiveness of the teams, it was all smiles and hugs when the competition ended.

Thanks to all of these hard-working, fun-loving volunteers who make each day at Infant Crisis Services an enjoyable experience!

In the last year, we had 2,769 volunteers put in a total of 17,905 hours at Infant Crisis Services. That is commitment!

But many of these compassionate volunteers go above and beyond what is expected of them. Linda Suchak, for example, is learning Spanish to be able to better communicate with families when there is a language barrier. Any free moment she has, she is on the computer, practicing her Spanish using Rosetta Stone software.

Without our volunteers, Infant Crisis Services would not be able to serve the community to the extent that we do today. Thank you, Linda, and thank you to the 2,768 others who are helping us serve the tiniest members of our community.

Marisela Lopez is our Branch Services Coordinator and oversees both locations. She assists clients, makes sure our branches are stocked with diapers, formula and baby food and has a passion for helping those in need.

"Listen to Your Mother" features live readings from Oklahoma writers about the joys, struggles and often humorous moments of motherhood.

The show will be held May 5, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. at the Will Rogers Theater in Oklahoma City, and a portion of the proceeds will benefit Infant Crisis Services.

Some of the cast members and producers of the Oklahoma City performance recently visited our organization to learn more about our mission.  

You can purchase tickets through their website. We are so thankful for this partnership, and to be the charity they have chosen to help.  

Thursday, Infant Crisis Services collected more than 200 pounds of baby items, including diapers, baby wash, bottles, sippy cups and formula.
In addition to all of these items, the Oklahoma Attorney General also donated $730!

We are so thankful for this generous donation that will go a long way toward helping babies and toddlers in need.

Infant Crisis Services partnered with Safe Kids Oklahoma and Church of the Servant to host the event, where we gave new car seats to needy families for a suggested donation of only 10 dollars.
Infant Crisis Services has four car seat technicians on staff, including our Executive Director, Miki Farris, who are certified to install and properly fit the seats.
Our car seat technicians helped install the seats and taught parents about child passenger safety.
All of the families left with greater assurance that their babies and toddlers would be safe and secure when in a car.

Ana Davis has worked at Infant Crisis Services since 2006. She not only assists clients every day with a smile on her face, but she goes above and beyond our organization's primary mission of providing life-sustaining formula, food and diapers to babies and toddlers in need. She is one of four trained and certified car seat technicians that we have on staff.

When our clients come in for an appointment, Ana will often check their car seats to make sure they are safe, properly installed and appropriate for the baby's weight and size. She can literally take a car seat completely apart and put it back together! Wednesday, she was recognized for her skill. She was awarded Metro Area Car Seat Technician of the Year. A big congratulations to Ana for earning this distinguished award!

This recognition incidentally comes just two days before our car seat distribution event, that will be held this Friday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. For a small, suggested donation of $10, we are giving more than 40 new car seats to families in need. Ana and our other car seat technicians will help install and properly fit the seats to ensure maximum child passenger safety. Because of limited availability, the car seats will be provided on a first-come first-served basis.

Infant Crisis Services is partnering with SafeKids Oklahoma to put on the event, which will take place in the parking lot of the Infant Crisis Services Donald W. Reynolds Center at 4224 North Lincoln Blvd.

We hope, by providing car seats to families in need and making sure they are properly installed, we will prevent injuries and save lives.

We fully believe that Infant Crisis Services has some of the best donors on the planet!  To show our appreciation to those who support our mission, we held a Donor Appreciation Open House Tuesday evening. The weather was cold and rainy, but we hope our guests found the Donald W. Reynolds Center warm and inviting.

Sherry Brooks, wife of Oklahoma City Thunder Coach Scott Brooks, was so gracious to attend the event, and our guests really enjoyed getting to know her. There were a few young Thunder fans that were very excited to meet her. We also raffled off Thunder tickets and merchandise autographed by some of the players.

For two hours, crowds mingled, toured our facility and got to truly experience the mission that they generously support. If you've never had the chance to take a tour of the Donald W. Reynolds Center and learn more about Infant Crisis Services, we would love to have you. Contact  our Development Coordinator, Becky Taylor, at (405) 778-7608 or email her.

Today is a special day for us here at Infant Crisis Services... it's a birthday of sorts.

Two years ago today, we joined forces with Sunbeam Family Services' Emergency Foster Care program. The partnership complements our mission to help the most fragile babies and toddlers in central Oklahoma.
Many of those in the foster care system don’t have a stable home, let alone the necessities, like food, diapers and clothing, to help them thrive and achieve their full potential. 
Since the inception of the partnership in April 2011, we’ve provided diapers and formula to 259 babies and toddlers during a critical time in their lives.  
We are proud to be celebrating our two year anniversary with Sunbeam and look forward to serving the community together for years to come.

I would like to personally send a special thank you to both Chris Mcafee and the Wal-Mart Foundation for their contribution to my Field Study Project. Your donation will make a world of a difference at Infant Crisis Services, and I thank you for your support!

Jennifer Diane Turner (Gainesville, Texas native) is currently a Child Development major at the University of Central Oklahoma. She is studying to be a Child Life Specialist. At the young age of six, she suffered a traumatic brain injury (Post-Infectious Encephalitis) and was transferred by Care-Flight to Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, TX where she went through extensive rehabilitation. She is a North Central Texas College alumni, former Child Life volunteer for Cook Children's, and plans to create a TBI Research Foundation while completing her studies at the University of Central Oklahoma. Her medical success story can be found at: http://www.wedoitallforkids.com/?p=887

 The Homemakers Class at Crown Heights Christian Church made a monetary donation in honor of Dr. John and Ruth Blaschke, who celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on March 23, 2013.
The couple has attended Crown Heights since 1959. For the past 40 years Dr. Blaschke has taught the Homemakers class, and they’re still loyal members, even in their nineties!

"They knew that children in need are dear to us," Dr. Blaschke said of his Homemakers class, "Ruth and I were foster parents for 25 years for DHS. We had 184 foster kids during that time, in addition to six of our own. We are both age 92 and somehow still enjoying life, albeit in a retirement center now."

From all of the babies and toddlers who you are helping, and from the staff and volunteers at Infant Crisis Services, happy platinum anniversary and a big THANK YOU!

Not only were we able to provide this precious baby with diapers, formula and other necessities, but thanks to Santa Fe Presbyterian Church in Edmond, we were able to send Flower home with her very first Easter basket. The congregation donated 40 Easter baskets to Infant Crisis Services with stuffed animals, bath items and toys for our babies and toddlers. Our loving volunteers have put together hundreds more, so that all of our clients who come in during the next two weeks can receive an Easter basket.
We are so grateful for all of those who have donated Easter items and for the volunteers who assembled the baskets. Thank you for all you do to help babies like Flower blossom in life!

"They're both picky eaters. That one," Jennifer said, referring to 2-year-old Samuel, "just doesn't eat."

Someone recommended Jennifer try PediaSure, a specialized drink to help children grow and get the proper nutrition they need.

Infant Crisis Services was able to provide the two toddlers with PediaSure thanks to a grant from the Oklahoma City Community Foundation.

The foundation awarded Infant Crisis Services $10,000 last August to purchase PediaSure and other speciality formulas that are often recommended by doctors or required for health reasons, but too expensive for struggling families.

 Now, Jennifer is confident her boys will get all the vitamins, minerals and calories they need to grow strong and healthy.

    The music was coming from a baby mobile that was spinning over one of the cribs we keep for our clients. As I walked up to the crib I could also hear the sound of a cooing baby. Inside the crib was little Salaethiel, fixated on the mobile, smiling and cooing, making sounds even more beautiful than the music. 

    It made me realize, I have the best job in the world! Not only do we get to help babies, like Salaethiel, but at any given moment during my day, there is usually a precious little angel waiting to be entertained, talked to or played with, just a few footsteps away.

Sadly, one in four babies in Oklahoma lives in poverty. Research shows babies and toddlers who are under nourished are plagued with long-term cognitive and behavioral problems.

March is National Nutrition Month, and at Infant Crisis Services, we are helping to raise awareness that proper nutrition starts in infancy.

As the only food bank for babies and toddlers in central Oklahoma, Infant Crisis Services gives out nearly 600 28 ounce cans of formula every month, and supplies hundreds of toddlers with baby food. 

Each year, we help feed and diaper more than 14,000 babies and toddlers, giving them hope for a successful future.

This adorable 2-year-old boy came into Infant Crisis Services with his mother and grandmother, proudly toting his favorite toy, a stuffed Woody doll, from the movie, "Toy Story".

Alan and Woody are inseparable... and somewhat identical.

When Alan’s mom pulled his very own cowboy hat out of her purse and placed it on his head, this little toddler put a smile on all of our faces.

It just goes to show, you can't separate a boy and his favorite toy!

The Infant Crisis Services Young Professionals Board had a great turn out for its first event!

The social mixer was held at Put a Cork in It Winery in Oklahoma City's Bricktown Entertainment District.

Dozens of people showed up Thursday night to sample wine and learn more about Infant Crisis Services and our mission.

After Executive Director Miki Farris told the group about all of the babies and toddlers that benefit from the organization, numerous people signed up to receive our newsletter and tour the facility.

We are so thankful for the young professionals that serve on this board and their dedication to raising awareness and funds for Infant Crisis Services!

Since August, the Infant Crisis Services Teen Associate Board has been working hard to gather donated items for their upcoming charity auction.

The May 3 event will feature more than 200 items in live and silent auctions. This year, some very special items will be auctioned off. If you are a collector of movie memorabilia or celebrity autographs, this event is the place to be!

A generous donor brought in dozens of autographed items from celebrities like Madonna, John Travolta, Katharine Hepburn, and famous Oklahomans James Garner and Carrie Underwood, .

Tickets for the event can be purchased here. We hope to see you there!