Vermont Business Magazine The Green Mountain United Way and Tatum’s Totes partnership celebrated one year this month and there is so much to celebrate! In the past year, 57 children entering emergency foster care in the Barre and Newport Department for Children and Family districts have received individually created backpacks through Green Mountain United Way’s partnership with Tatum’s Tote’s. Green Mountain United Way administers Tatum’s Totes in these regions and recently helped to expand efforts to the Morrisville Department for Children and Families District.
Tatum’s Totes is an independent nonprofit organization started in Rutland by foster parents Liz and Alex Grimes in honor of their son Tatum who died at the age of 5 months old of SIDS. After becoming foster parents, they found that many children entered the foster care system with little more than a plastic bag and the clothes they were wearing. They started Tatum’s Totes to ensure that each child entering emergency foster care had a backpack of their own filled with comforting items that could stay with them throughout their transition into foster care. Green Mountain United Way employee Pam Bailey saw the program on Facebook and immediately recognized the value for the Central and Northern Vermont regions that Green Mountain United Way serves and offered to establish a Tatum’s Totes program for both Newport and Barre DCF Districts in February 2016.
The largest support of the program so far occurred during the holiday season through the Green Mountain United Way’s holiday “Sponsor a Foster Child” program. Over 225 children who were actively in foster care in the Barre and Newport areas received holiday gifts of pajamas, books, and toys from a variety of business and individual community supporters. Generous businesses took this opportunity to have employee events to coordinate gifts, package and wrap items donated by their employees. Businesses who participated include: Northfield Savings Bank, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont, Key Auto, Louis Garneau, TD Bank’s Barton branch, JC Penney at the Berlin Mall, Connor Contracting, Orleans County Board of Realtors, and a statewide Edward Jones gift drive led by Green Mountain United Way Campaign Chair Karen Ward in Newport.
In addition to this on the ground support, Tatum’s Totes has been the recipient of thousands of dollars in in-kind contributions from community members throughout the year including, most recently, a gift of $700 raised by Vermont College of Fine Arts from the Vermont Premier of the film The Great Gilly Hopkins. “The outpouring from our community has been so incredible that Green Mountain United Way has had to rent a separate storage space in our building to keep all of the items we put in backpacks! Generous contributions of money and items have helped us establish this program, including a sponsor who stepped forward to help us when we needed that extra space! This generosity has allowed us to directly support children in our DCF districts. This program just resonates with so many in our communities who want to be there for these children and families. It is really an honor to do this work.”, said Pam Bailey, coordinator for Tatum’s Totes in Barre and Newport DCF Districts.
For details about Green Mountain United Way’s partnership with Tatum’s Totes, ways to give, and current needs, go towww.gmunitedway.org.
About Green Mountain United Way: Green Mountain United Way is a Vermont not-for-profit organization in operation since 1976. They work to improve the health, education and financial stability of every person in every community in Caledonia, Essex, Orange, Orleans and Washington Counties by mobilizing the caring power of communities around our region to advance the common good. No other single organization has the scope and influence to bring together human service agencies, government, businesses, private foundations and dedicated volunteers around a common vision of creating maximum impact and achieving long-lasting results.
About Tatum’s Totes: Tatum’s Totes is an independent nonprofit organization founded by Liz and Alex Grimes of Rutland, Vermont and named after their son Tatum who died of SIDS in 2013. They found comfort in honoring Tatum’s memory in many ways, and one of these was through becoming foster parents. They founded Tatum’s Totes after realizing that children having comforting items of their own can help ease the transition into a new home. Tatum’s Totes now serves all DCF regions in Vermont.VBM vermontbiz.com
Source:Barre & Newport, Vermont – February 21, 2017 – The Green Mountain United Way