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Speaker 2: We talk about diapers perpetuating the cycle of poverty. So
Speaker 2: if you don't have six to eight diapers to drop
Speaker 2: your child off at daycare, you can't go to work,
Speaker 2: and you can't go to a job interview. So they're stopping.
Speaker 2: It's really like a block for women and parents being
Speaker 2: able to go to work. So it's really this symbol
Speaker 2: of poverty. That's how we look at diapers.
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, I've got some huge news to share with you.
Speaker 1: In the last ninety days, seventy nine point four percent
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Speaker 1: wellness podcast, Say Sety Jay Setty seely say Shaty. Hey everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast
Speaker 1: in the world. Thanks to each and every one of
Speaker 1: you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things I'm fascinated about is
Speaker 1: people who find a passion and are able to turn
Speaker 1: it into a purpose. People who have a cause that
Speaker 1: they care about and they're able to get organized around
Speaker 1: it to make a change and impact in the world,
Speaker 1: and today's guests have done exactly that. Nora Weinstein and
Speaker 1: Kelly Sawyer Patrick Hof are the co CEOs of Baby
Speaker 1: to Baby. Baby to Baby is a national nonprofit organization
Speaker 1: that serves more than one million children living in poverty
Speaker 1: every year. Serving children across all fifty states, Baby to
Speaker 1: Baby distributes diapers, formula, clothing, and basic necessities that every
Speaker 1: child deserves. The organization has distributed over four hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty million essential idea items to children in homeless shelters,
Speaker 1: domestic violence programs, foster care hospitals, underserved schools, and families
Speaker 1: who have lost everything in the wake of disasters. Since
Speaker 1: last year, Baby de Baby has delivered more than one
Speaker 1: point five million emergency supplies to children affected by the
Speaker 1: Maui wildfires. Please welcome to the show, Nora and Kelly.
Speaker 1: Thank you both for.
Speaker 3: Being here, Thanks for having us, and I'm so grateful.
Speaker 1: To have you both here. And honestly, when my team
Speaker 1: and I met you both last year, we got to
Speaker 1: come and join your volunteer program, which was a service
Speaker 1: day for our team. We'd made a commitment at the
Speaker 1: company that we wanted to find programs that meant some
Speaker 1: importance in the team, causes that people were passionate about
Speaker 1: on the team, and yours was right up there, and
Speaker 1: the team wanted to get right behind it. And getting
Speaker 1: to be there that day and learn about the incredible
Speaker 1: work you were doing, I was totally blown away, very
Speaker 1: much in admiration of both of you and your stories journeys.
Speaker 1: And then of course I got to attend your garla,
Speaker 1: which was phenomenal and spectacular, and I can't even remember
Speaker 1: how much you raised. Was it twelve million in that
Speaker 1: gala that you raised? I remember this, yeah, twelve point
Speaker 1: six to me. I love that, Kelly good be exactly.
Speaker 1: It was just it was incredible to see just two
Speaker 1: people who are so passionate about a cause, active on
Speaker 1: it every day and creating amazing value from it. So
Speaker 1: congratulations first of all, and thank you for this opportunity.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's dive straight in, Nora, Kelly. I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you both individually and collectively about
Speaker 1: your respective journeys. This is not what you've done forever.
Speaker 1: I believe it's twelve years now that you've been building
Speaker 1: baby to baby. We just hit thirteen, Just hit thirteen, amazing, congratulations.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about your individual journeys, and I want
Speaker 1: to find out when you were in your previous lives.
Speaker 1: Was this a passion of yours? Was this something you
Speaker 1: were aware of, or were you lost in a completely
Speaker 1: different world? Whoever wants to go first?
Speaker 4: Looking back, I think this makes so much sense that
Speaker 4: this is where I've ended up. As a kid, I
Speaker 4: was giving back. I think it's really important when parents
Speaker 4: instill that and their children. I went to Hebrew school
Speaker 4: and giving back was a core part of what we learned.
Speaker 4: We had something called Sedaka, which was bringing change every
Speaker 4: week to school and whatever you could collect in your house,
Speaker 4: and that money was going to go toward helping others.
Speaker 4: We also had a food pantry that was attached to
Speaker 4: our temple and we would go on the weekends and
Speaker 4: my parents would bring me and we would give food
Speaker 4: to people who were less fortunate. Fast forward, I became
Speaker 4: a lawyer and in my law firm, Scatin Arps, which
Speaker 4: I love dearly. It's a big corporate law firm doing
Speaker 4: giant securities cases. But there's an option to do pro
Speaker 4: bono work. Propone of work is obviously helping people who
Speaker 4: are less fortunate without charging them, and that's what I
Speaker 4: gravitated to immediately because.
Speaker 3: It was just to me that was so obvious.
Speaker 4: Why would you want to work on a big automotive
Speaker 4: or oil case when you got to help a low
Speaker 4: income woman get housing. So it was a no brainer
Speaker 4: to me. I was so thrilled to have the opportunity
Speaker 4: to do that from the law firm, and that's.
Speaker 3: Just all I wanted to do.
Speaker 4: So looking back, I was going toward this direction of
Speaker 4: giving back, and baby to Baby is certainly a huge
Speaker 4: extension of that. But I do think it was always there,
Speaker 4: and I do think it's important to teach your children
Speaker 4: about giving back from a young age. I think a
Speaker 4: lot of the people we meet on this journey that
Speaker 4: care they started caring as a child.
Speaker 1: I love that. Thank you so much, Kelly. It was
Speaker 1: the same question.
Speaker 2: Well, I was a model, so you know, you wouldn't
Speaker 2: think of that probably as a giving back career, but
Speaker 2: it was a career that took me all over the world.
Speaker 2: But also when I was home in my home base
Speaker 2: of New York, I would volunteer at a head start
Speaker 2: center in Harlem that I knew people who worked there,
Speaker 2: and so I would work with kids in my free time.
Speaker 2: I always loved being with kids. I wanted to be
Speaker 2: a teacher when I was younger, and so I was
Speaker 2: in the classroom with these children and they had no
Speaker 2: shoes that fit, clothes that were, you know, too small.
Speaker 2: They would wear the same clothes to school every day.
Speaker 2: They wouldn't come to school because they didn't have these
Speaker 2: basic things. And so that sort of instilled in me this,
Speaker 2: you know, need to help children with basic essentials, Like
Speaker 2: I saw what could happen if they didn't have them.
Speaker 2: They couldn't get an education, they wouldn't show up to school.
Speaker 2: So that was something that was part of my free time.
Speaker 2: But I loved it so much. I was really passionate
Speaker 2: about it. And when I moved to la and Norah
Speaker 2: and I met my father and that happened to introduce
Speaker 2: us because he knew I had a passion for giving
Speaker 2: back to children and need and Nora did as well,
Speaker 2: So he set us up on a blind date and
Speaker 2: that was how we met, and so it all sort
Speaker 2: of happened from there.
Speaker 1: That's genius. Yeah, well, I'm sure he's taking all the
Speaker 1: credit now.
Speaker 3: He definitely yes, trust me, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: No. What I love about both of those stories independently,
Speaker 1: And I love what you're saying, Nora, this idea of
Speaker 1: how giving back has been a part of your culture
Speaker 1: ever since you were young, and I can definitely identify
Speaker 1: that and recognize that. I remember my parents didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot growing up, but giving back was always part
Speaker 1: of their life. And I think even when I was
Speaker 1: growing up, there were times in my mind where I thought,
Speaker 1: when I have more, I'll give more. But I found
Speaker 1: that that was the wrong mindset, it was the wrong mentality.
Speaker 1: What I found is whatever I have, whatever I can give,
Speaker 1: is a great place to start, whether it's time or
Speaker 1: energy or money or whatever else it may be. And
Speaker 1: I guess, did you feel like in your career in
Speaker 1: Noura when you were going down that and you were
Speaker 1: choosing pro bono work, did that positively or negatively affect
Speaker 1: your career? And how did that impact you, know, being
Speaker 1: a lawyer and navigating that world.
Speaker 4: It was positive in every way because again I had
Speaker 4: the big firms do take on this pro bono commitment,
Speaker 4: and they owe the hours, and so they need some
Speaker 4: of their associates and partners to be people who love it,
Speaker 4: and so that was lucky. And then you get so
Speaker 4: much legal experience because at a big firm, big complex cases,
Speaker 4: as a junior lawyer, you're having a very minor role
Speaker 4: in a big complex case, and pro bono cases you
Speaker 4: work directly with individuals, and so you advance that much
Speaker 4: more quickly.
Speaker 3: You're you're in court, you're in front of judges, you're
Speaker 3: with a.
Speaker 4: Client, and so I actually think it's a win win
Speaker 4: for the law firms because you're you're gaining experience and
Speaker 4: also giving back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the reason I ask because I feel like people
Speaker 1: always feel and I wonder whether you come across this,
Speaker 1: but I feel a lot of people always feel like
Speaker 1: if I give back, I'm going to slip behind, I'm
Speaker 1: going to fall behind, or if I focus on that,
Speaker 1: And I remember I was at a consulting firm Accenture,
Speaker 1: and giving back was a big part of their culture
Speaker 1: as well, and we had service days in the company
Speaker 1: and we had something called ADP which was Accentia's area
Speaker 1: of doing pro bono work, and it was encouraged. But
Speaker 1: I find that that's newer and growing now. Whereas you know,
Speaker 1: I imagine like ten twenty years ago, that wasn't the norm. So, Kelly,
Speaker 1: how have you felt about that in terms of like
Speaker 1: this identity of giving back. Do you feel like it's
Speaker 1: kind of seen positively or is it always something that
Speaker 1: people think, oh yeah, think about that later, or how
Speaker 1: do people approach that.
Speaker 2: I think what we do at Baby to Baby is
Speaker 2: we try and make giving back fun and interesting, and
Speaker 2: we try and make it for whether you're an individual,
Speaker 2: a company, you want to come with your whole class
Speaker 2: from your school, and you're a teacher. Sure, so we
Speaker 2: try and make it, you know, fun and trendy, and
Speaker 2: we've tried to, like, you know, bring some excitement into
Speaker 2: giving back, and as you saw when you came for
Speaker 2: your team building day, I think it's really working. And
Speaker 2: I think we get so many great different organizations from
Speaker 2: you know, your team or the Girl Scouts come in,
Speaker 2: or we'll have classrooms full of kids, but we also
Speaker 2: have big studios come in and different companies come in
Speaker 2: for their give back day. And we've been able to
Speaker 2: really make that part of Baby to Baby from day one.
Speaker 3: People love it.
Speaker 4: People I agree that it's changed, but I think and
Speaker 4: I think for reasons for all kinds of reasons. I
Speaker 4: think a lot of individuals are just love it and
Speaker 4: love giving back. I think children organically like to give back.
Speaker 4: I think companies have to give back, and so there
Speaker 4: are companies that have it in their culture because it's
Speaker 4: organic and the leaders want it. And there are companies
Speaker 4: that just have to have it because I think employees
Speaker 4: demand it. So what we're finding is that when we
Speaker 4: you know, we're obviously a national organization, but even in
Speaker 4: our headquarters, our volunteer sessions, where we have the most,
Speaker 4: they fill up in seconds after we put up, and
Speaker 4: we have two of them. We have sessions twice a day,
Speaker 4: and the minute they open up about a month ahead
Speaker 4: of time, and they are they fill up immediately, and
Speaker 4: people are calling to get you know, can they come
Speaker 4: later at night, Can they come on the weekends.
Speaker 3: People want to teach them.
Speaker 4: The people I think are desperate to teach their kids
Speaker 4: to give back. And I think actually the more they have,
Speaker 4: a lot of times people wrecke, you know, people are
Speaker 4: they recognize how much they have, and I think they
Speaker 4: really think it's a responsibility, especially if they didn't grow
Speaker 4: up that way. I think we talked to a lot
Speaker 4: of people who didn't grow up with as much now
Speaker 4: find themselves in situations where they have so much and
Speaker 4: they don't know how to teach their kids the way
Speaker 4: that they were taught, And how could someone in a
Speaker 4: pre situation teach their kids that that is not how
Speaker 4: the world lives. And so I think people are just
Speaker 4: dying for dying for I think people are really craving
Speaker 4: opportunities to give back, and I don't think there are
Speaker 4: that many. So we have found that it's often expensive
Speaker 4: to have people volunteer, or there's nonprofits that are on
Speaker 4: a smaller scale where I'm sure they would want help,
Speaker 4: but they can't always afford to have people come in.
Speaker 4: It's messy, it's time consuming, and so there aren't as
Speaker 4: many programs as there actually used to be. And so
Speaker 4: I think when people identify a place that can really
Speaker 4: use them in a way where they know that they're
Speaker 4: being used in a purposeful manner and not just doing
Speaker 4: busy work, and when they're at Baby Baby, they're seeing
Speaker 4: they are folding outfits for children and putting together We
Speaker 4: try to make it very specific so that people understand
Speaker 4: how they're giving back. And even though we talk a
Speaker 4: lot about big numbers, and four hundred and fifty million
Speaker 4: items we're giving out and a million kids. People want
Speaker 4: to focus on individuals when they're folding an outfit and
Speaker 4: choosing what outfit to give a two year old who's
Speaker 4: in foster care, who they know is coming in such
Speaker 4: a horrific circumstance, and they're going to get to choose
Speaker 4: the outfit that goes to this child who's in such need.
Speaker 4: People feel a lot of pride and want those opportunities.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah. I remember when we were there that day.
Speaker 1: I felt your team did a phenomenal job. Obviously we met,
Speaker 1: but I thought you and your team did a great
Speaker 1: job of educating us in what we were actually doing, yeah,
Speaker 1: and where it was going and how it works. And
Speaker 1: I found that to be You're so right, Like as
Speaker 1: a volunteer, you felt so much more closely connected to
Speaker 1: the work that was going on. So when you both meet,
Speaker 1: was it love at first sight? Was it like I
Speaker 1: love this person, We're in sync, like we should do
Speaker 1: something together? Like what was that energy like? Because obviously
Speaker 1: this was a warm intro. I guess it was from
Speaker 1: someone you trust and respect, But what was what came
Speaker 1: out of that initial meeting?
Speaker 2: So we had dinner with our husbands just down the street,
Speaker 2: and we were you know, probably ten minutes of the
Speaker 2: conversation was about I was giving back, you know, I
Speaker 2: was modeling living in New York, just moved here and
Speaker 2: giving back at the head Start center. Or had told
Speaker 2: me about her pro bona work with women and children.
Speaker 2: So we sort of connected on that and then sort
Speaker 2: of went on a merry way and that was kind
Speaker 2: of it. And then I think we reached out to
Speaker 2: each other later on, but it wasn't that. It wasn't
Speaker 2: like the next day. It was a little while later
Speaker 2: and we had coffee and we were talking about like,
Speaker 2: how could we start something, what could we do to help,
Speaker 2: you know, women and children? That was both of our passion,
Speaker 2: and what we decided to do was go and meet
Speaker 2: with different nonprofits in Los Angeles at the time and
Speaker 2: see what was missing. So we went to homeless shelters,
Speaker 2: domestic violence shelters, head start centers, schools, and we asked
Speaker 2: what was missing, where what was the need? And across
Speaker 2: the board, no matter who we talked to, it was, oh,
Speaker 2: we're doing the programming, but what's missing is families are
Speaker 2: struggling to afford diapers, food, these basic essentials and sort
Speaker 2: of a light bulb back to the head Start center
Speaker 2: where I saw the children who couldn't come to school
Speaker 2: because their shoes were three sizes too small, or they
Speaker 2: hadn't eaten breakfast, or all of these basic things that
Speaker 2: their needs weren't being met. And it all came together
Speaker 2: and what happened was we talked about what we wanted
Speaker 2: to do. Diaper need was one of the things that
Speaker 2: every single person said. And at the time, you know,
Speaker 2: there was this statistic that one in three families were
Speaker 2: struggling to afford diapers. Obviously, now later thirteen years later,
Speaker 2: unfortunately that statistic is that one in two families now
Speaker 2: struggle to afford diapers. So we kept hearing this theme
Speaker 2: of like diaper need, diaper need, and what could we
Speaker 2: do about it? And so it was a problem that
Speaker 2: we kept seeing that we wanted to solve. And so
Speaker 2: day one that was sort of like, Okay, how could
Speaker 2: we make this work? What could we do together to
Speaker 2: fix this? So that was sort of like the light
Speaker 2: bulb moment for both of us.
Speaker 1: I love that process and I want our audience to
Speaker 1: take note of that because I think one of the
Speaker 1: biggest things I hear from my community is Jay, I
Speaker 1: care about so many things, how do I choose what
Speaker 1: to focus on? Like, there are so many challenges in
Speaker 1: the world, and I don't know how I fit in.
Speaker 1: And I think often those questions are very sincere and genuine,
Speaker 1: but they stop us from making change and having an
Speaker 1: impact because we kind of get lost in decision making
Speaker 1: and choosing. And I love that approach that you both
Speaker 1: had of let's actually go and research, let's go and learn,
Speaker 1: and let's listen to say where's the gap, what's missing?
Speaker 1: How can we solve that? And sorry, God Nor.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can see you so because it is all
Speaker 4: of that, but it's asking the people who need the help.
Speaker 4: And I think that was like the key that we discovered,
Speaker 4: which was that we and this has helped us for
Speaker 4: thirteen years, is that we can't assume what someone needs.
Speaker 4: You have to go to the community and ask. And
Speaker 4: that helped us on day one when we were asking
Speaker 4: what is the basic need so that you'd understand because
Speaker 4: I don't think it's what we were expecting. We weren't
Speaker 4: expecting that they were going to say the whole need
Speaker 4: is diaper need. But then it made sense when we listened, well,
Speaker 4: no one's going to come to our parenting class, no
Speaker 4: one's going to come for a well visit.
Speaker 3: No one's going to file their insurance claim.
Speaker 4: We can't get to these people, specifically moms if they
Speaker 4: have a baby in a dirty diaper.
Speaker 3: It just logically doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: But then.
Speaker 4: Today when we're dealing with our disaster relief program and
Speaker 4: we talked to we're talking to our team is talking
Speaker 4: to families or the social service agency that serves the
Speaker 4: families in a disaster. Again, you're saying, don't assume what
Speaker 4: someone needs in this particular hurricane. Ask them because maybe
Speaker 4: they'll say, well, in this case, the water has been
Speaker 4: contaminated and we need water before we need anything else.
Speaker 3: To make formula.
Speaker 4: Early on, when we knew people needed gear like cribs
Speaker 4: and strollers, we thought we worked with companies that had big,
Speaker 4: fancy strollers and we thought, let's get let's try to
Speaker 4: get those donated. And then we went to the community
Speaker 4: and they said, no, we don't want a big fancy stroller.
Speaker 4: We want a fold up, twenty dollars stroller. We're getting
Speaker 4: on the bus, we have multiple children, we're walking to
Speaker 4: school and work, and so again our assumption would have been,
Speaker 4: let's get the highest tech stroller out there. The reality was, no,
Speaker 4: we actually need a practical stroller. So I feel like
Speaker 4: we learned that lesson over and over in everything we do. Listen,
Speaker 4: listen to the community you're serving, and let them tell
Speaker 4: you what they need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a great insight. I feel like it's
Speaker 1: such a privileged position to think you can predict what
Speaker 1: someone needs and what someone wants. And I think even
Speaker 1: when I came and you're doing my diet, because I
Speaker 1: was like, really, I couldn't believe it, Like I was.
Speaker 1: I was somewhat like mind blown by the fact that
Speaker 1: that was the missing link. And then when you start
Speaker 1: learning about it and how much more it affects as
Speaker 1: opposed to do you think it's just the diaper, and
Speaker 1: I know we can go into just you know, the
Speaker 1: extent of impact that has and all the other supplies
Speaker 1: that you both focused on providing, you almost think, wow,
Speaker 1: I would never have known that, Like I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: come to that off my own accord. And I think
Speaker 1: sometimes a lot of us are trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what people need in a silo isolated from the problem,
Speaker 1: from the situation, from people, and we're rarely going to
Speaker 1: get to the right answer. What did it feel like?
Speaker 1: You know, you're both having successful careers, you're happy doing
Speaker 1: service work on top of that, like you're doing the
Speaker 1: pro bono work, you're going to head start Like in
Speaker 1: one sense, it's almost like, well, this is great, I serve,
Speaker 1: I work, I have a good career. What makes you
Speaker 1: both go okay, no, we need to do this full time,
Speaker 1: like this needs to be our primary focus because that
Speaker 1: feels like a genuinely big leap and commitment and taking
Speaker 1: away from too great career parts to actually say no, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is enough of a priority. Was it something you
Speaker 1: were building while you were working or did you both
Speaker 1: go no, we're going to stop working and start building.
Speaker 1: Which way round did it go?
Speaker 4: It all happened very fast, so I think we were
Speaker 4: slowing down on our other careers and projects. But once
Speaker 4: we started it was it took off very quickly, so
Speaker 4: there was immediately no room to do anything else. We
Speaker 4: actually had a event very early on where we wanted
Speaker 4: to kind of announce this that we had taken over
Speaker 4: baby to baby and that we wanted to make a
Speaker 4: really big impact, and we wanted to work quickly. We
Speaker 4: both there, I think, have very big ideas and dreams,
Speaker 4: and so we put together a small event to just
Speaker 4: make this announcement. And we didn't want to spend any money,
Speaker 4: so we went to friends and had a publicist help
Speaker 4: get a photographer there and a friend who had a
Speaker 4: hotel space to donate and some alcohol so in case we.
Speaker 3: Were asking for money, we want to make sure people
Speaker 3: were in good moods.
Speaker 1: And is that what?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's one of our big secret got it
Speaker 2: as you probably saw.
Speaker 3: At the gallon.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, we.
Speaker 4: Had this event, talked a little bit about the mission
Speaker 4: of Baby Baby and where we wanted to go with it,
Speaker 4: and two of our Day one board members, Jessica Alba
Speaker 4: Nicole Richie both came to the event and had their
Speaker 4: picture taken by the pro bono photographer and the picture
Speaker 4: showed up a few days later in US magazine. Kelly
Speaker 4: and I at the time had one intern and we
Speaker 4: had a very small six hundred square foot storefront space,
Speaker 4: and we got a phone call a few days later
Speaker 4: from a big publicity company that represented Kimberly Clark, who
Speaker 4: owned Huggy's diapers and they said we answered the phone
Speaker 4: and they said they had seen the picture and they
Speaker 4: wanted to know if they could donate one hundred thousand
Speaker 4: dollars and one hundred thousand diapers. Again, this is week
Speaker 4: two on the job.
Speaker 2: We have like four boxes of diapers sitting next to us,
Speaker 2: and we were like, yeah, we'll take one hundred thousand diapers,
Speaker 2: thank you, please send them over right now. And then
Speaker 2: they said, well, do you guys accept palelettes? And we're googling,
Speaker 2: like what is a palette.
Speaker 3: We're like, yes, we take a dollar and a model,
Speaker 3: not a lot of palettes.
Speaker 2: And then they're like, do you guys have forklifts. I'm like,
Speaker 2: of course, we have forklifts. Yes, And I'm like where
Speaker 2: do you rent a forklift? And we're trying to figure
Speaker 2: it out and we're like sure, no problem, no problem.
Speaker 2: And then the truck shows up.
Speaker 3: The biggest truck we've ever seen.
Speaker 2: We were wearing these shoes with your heels.
Speaker 4: In case they're listening, and we got on the truck
Speaker 4: and our intern popped onto and a very nice driver
Speaker 4: and we learned what it meant that they were on palettes,
Speaker 4: which made them difficult.
Speaker 2: We were there with the exact donas, getting the plastic
Speaker 2: golf and the crates open and trying to unload them
Speaker 2: ourselves with the truck driver in the end turn the
Speaker 2: four of us.
Speaker 3: But we did it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we filled our small storefront space and spilled
Speaker 4: out a little bit. And the moral of the story is, well,
Speaker 4: there are two morals of the story. But we gave
Speaker 4: them out in one day. So we called this is
Speaker 4: one hundred thousand diapers. It's a lot of diapers, and
Speaker 4: we called contacts at home, the shelters, some schools, some
Speaker 4: local hospitals and said, we have diapers for free to
Speaker 4: give out.
Speaker 3: Would you like to come get them?
Speaker 4: And it was astonishing to see they were truly we say,
Speaker 4: they were truly like gold that people were picking up,
Speaker 4: and how.
Speaker 3: What it meant to people and the relief that it
Speaker 3: was showing.
Speaker 4: Again this was not you know, we don't serve individuals
Speaker 4: directly because it's in general because it has been more
Speaker 4: efficient for us to scale to give to other organizations
Speaker 4: that can give them out to their clients and fill
Speaker 4: the whole shelter or school or know who's in the
Speaker 4: most need, which is important to us, but they went
Speaker 4: out the door in one day. Now we can talk
Speaker 4: later that that was one hundred thousand diapers. Now to
Speaker 4: date we've given out two hundred million, but at that
Speaker 4: time it was so many, and I think it taught
Speaker 4: us probably our two most important lessons. One diaper need
Speaker 4: was enormous and not going anywhere. And two the power
Speaker 4: of these celebrity endorsements and sponsorships. So just from two
Speaker 4: women getting behind us, a company wanted to give us that,
Speaker 4: and we have created that into a playbook where with
Speaker 4: dozens and dozens and dozens of amazing women actresses, celebrities, entrepreneurs, CEOs,
Speaker 4: we've been able to take advantage of their platforms and
Speaker 4: that is what has catapulted us to be able to
Speaker 4: give away hundreds of millions of items.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, what a first week at the job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty interesting and I could totally resonate with. I
Speaker 1: remember I was sixteen years old and I used to
Speaker 1: work at a grocery store and I remember I remember
Speaker 1: unloading my first ever truck of palettes of water and
Speaker 1: I had one of those manual.
Speaker 3: Forklifts, like not even like to checkout girls, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, they wouldn't let me do that, and so
Speaker 1: they were like, you're you're sixteen. And literally I remember
Speaker 1: putting this manual forklift in, putting it in a palette,
Speaker 1: and like them pulling it out, and it was one
Speaker 1: of the heaviest, most arduous tasks ever. And now that
Speaker 1: I've been to your warehouse and seeing just how many
Speaker 1: not only diapers you have, but supplies you have, and
Speaker 1: just the scale at which you're dealing with this, I
Speaker 1: wanted to read out. You know, I was looking at
Speaker 1: some of these statistics because I just want people to
Speaker 1: understand the problem statement or the level of challenge. This
Speaker 1: just blew my mind and I want to share it
Speaker 1: because is yeah, it's super important. Listen to this everyone.
Speaker 1: So Kelly already said this one. One in two families
Speaker 1: struggle in the US to have four diapers for their children.
Speaker 1: I would never think of that diapers cost eighty dollars
Speaker 1: to one hundred dollars per month per baby, and the
Speaker 1: average low income family pays nearly one thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year for diapers. This part, I think was just yeah,
Speaker 1: please for three years.
Speaker 3: Are all true, but getting worse.
Speaker 4: So with inflation, we're finding that our the families we
Speaker 4: serve are saying the prices are thirty percent up from
Speaker 4: that in the last few years, so the is getting worse.
Speaker 1: And then this one, diapers are the fourth highest household
Speaker 1: expense after rent, food and utilities for families with diaper need.
Speaker 1: Childcare centers often require six to eight diapers per day
Speaker 1: for children to enroll and attend daily.
Speaker 3: That's the one we want people to know about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we talk about diapers perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
Speaker 2: So if you don't have six to eight diapers to
Speaker 2: drop your child off at daycare, you can't go to work,
Speaker 2: and you can't go to a job interview, so they're stopping.
Speaker 2: It's really like a block for women and parents being
Speaker 2: able to go to work. So if you don't have
Speaker 2: the money to afford diapers and you can't drop your
Speaker 2: child off at daycare, how can you go to work?
Speaker 2: So it's really this symbol of poverty. That's how we
Speaker 2: look at diapers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit more, because
Speaker 1: that's what I meant earlier when I was talking about
Speaker 1: how like diapers is almost like that the central point
Speaker 1: of all these other issues that the work actually affects right,
Speaker 1: So poverty is one of them, that's a cool one.
Speaker 1: What are the others that you feel a massively affected?
Speaker 2: Well, we know that when we give families diapers that
Speaker 2: they're paying their rent, putting food on the table, and
Speaker 2: keeping their lights on. And as you already said by
Speaker 2: reading off all our favorite stats, that that is something
Speaker 2: that a diaper is stopping people, you know, from doing anything.
Speaker 2: It's really you can't leave your house if you don't
Speaker 2: have diapers. Families are using newspapers or towels substitutes. So
Speaker 2: if you don't have a diaper, how can you go
Speaker 2: and take your baby to the grocery store to even
Speaker 2: buy food for your other children. It's just diapers are
Speaker 2: this symbol of poverty to us. That that's why every
Speaker 2: day diaper need is the number one thing we're focused on.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean I'm going to go on because
Speaker 1: these to me, these were just these were huge. These
Speaker 1: were some amazing stats about the incredible work you've done
Speaker 1: around it. So in twenty twenty one, Baby to Baby
Speaker 1: developed your own diaper manufacturing system, producing diapers at eighty
Speaker 1: percent less than the retail cost, in order to help
Speaker 1: me meet the exponentially increasing demand walk me through that direction,
Speaker 1: because now that's like you're going from having one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dia percent to you right then figuring out that
Speaker 1: it's too expensive.
Speaker 2: Well, we've been getting diapers donated from companies like Huggies,
Speaker 2: for example with the Jessica and Nicole event and the
Speaker 2: story nor I just told. But also, you know, corporate
Speaker 2: partners have been a huge part of Baby to Baby's growth,
Speaker 2: using Jessica's example with Honest Company, they donated ten million
Speaker 2: items to us, a lot of those being diapers. But
Speaker 2: diapers are just the number one thing we're you know,
Speaker 2: trying to get and we're doing it in every which way.
Speaker 2: So we're trying to get corporate sponsors to donate to us.
Speaker 2: Then we've gone to Sacramento to testify to have the
Speaker 2: sales tax removed from diapers. That was something we were
Speaker 2: able to do. Then we did a Goop campaign with
Speaker 2: Gwyneth Paltrow where we launched a fake luxury diaper that
Speaker 2: was intended to make people angry, and it was a spoof,
Speaker 2: and Gwyneth was like, I'll take the heat for this,
Speaker 2: and she launched a diaper and it had you know,
Speaker 2: diamonds and fur and it was made of like I'll
Speaker 2: pack a fur and it was one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: dollars for a pack of ten, but it was meant
Speaker 2: to show that one hundred and twenty dollars is what
Speaker 2: you need to diaper your baby for a month. And
Speaker 2: once she did the grand reveal, it was like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is meant to piss you off because diapers are
Speaker 2: tax like a luxury item. How insane is that? And
Speaker 2: what can we do about it? So then you were
Speaker 2: able to go onto Goop and Baby to Babies shared
Speaker 2: platform and reach out to your state senator and say like,
Speaker 2: this is ridiculous. How can we still tax diapers like
Speaker 2: a luxury item? And since we did that, seven states
Speaker 2: followed suit. There are still twenty six states left the
Speaker 2: tax diapers, but we're still working on that. That's, you know,
Speaker 2: more to come on that. But manufacturing the diapers was
Speaker 2: something we started because we were able to buy diapers
Speaker 2: for cost from our manufacturer, so they were giving us
Speaker 2: low cost diapers. But at some point the manufacturer who
Speaker 2: we were working with understood our mission, knew what we did,
Speaker 2: and we talked to them about like, okay, what if
Speaker 2: we stripped off the cartoons and made these diapers plain
Speaker 2: and white and we just use one color for the packaging.
Speaker 2: How low would you make them for us? How you
Speaker 2: know what could we get the cost down to? So
Speaker 2: eighty percent less than retail is how much we're making
Speaker 2: them for now their baby to baby diapers. They're plain white,
Speaker 2: but they worked just as well as any and we've
Speaker 2: been able to distribute two hundred million diapers because of
Speaker 2: this relationship and because of manufacturing. So it was something
Speaker 2: innovative we came up with during COVID because the need
Speaker 2: was so great, But it's really been able to stretch
Speaker 2: our donor dollar so much further and been able to
Speaker 2: diaper a lot more babies.
Speaker 4: I think we had really kind of hit rock bottom
Speaker 4: with the desperation for diapers during COVID, so it was
Speaker 4: already I mean, we're saying it's one out of two
Speaker 4: families in the United States. It's just an impossible statistic
Speaker 4: to digest. But it was seeing and hearing one by
Speaker 4: one the alternatives that the families were taking, like using
Speaker 4: a newspaper to diaper their child, like using a towel,
Speaker 4: like taking a diaper off a baby, cleaning it, hanging
Speaker 4: it to dry and putting it back on their baby.
Speaker 4: And there was a point during COVID where the diapers
Speaker 4: were also off the shelves. If you can remember, most
Speaker 4: people were talking about the toilet paper shortage, but diapers
Speaker 4: were right there with them, and.
Speaker 3: It was just so.
Speaker 4: Upsetting to everyone at Baby to Baby that our team
Speaker 4: really made this, really had this idea to say we
Speaker 4: have to do something about this. That our need had
Speaker 4: gone up five hundred percent just at Baby to Baby
Speaker 4: alone in the weeks when COVID started, and so that
Speaker 4: was when we kind of in desperation went to these
Speaker 4: manufacturing partners and said, we know we're doing a lot,
Speaker 4: it's not enough, and we talked about scratching surfaces earlier.
Speaker 4: You know, we're even now. We're proud that we've given
Speaker 4: out two hundred million diapers. It's more than any organization
Speaker 4: like ours in the country, but it's not enough. We
Speaker 4: have this year alone, just from the families we serve,
Speaker 4: we have request for one point five billion diapers.
Speaker 3: So we just had to do more.
Speaker 4: And it was manufacturing and the manufacturing system that allowed
Speaker 4: us to really take the leap, because now when we
Speaker 4: get donations, we know they can go so much further.
Speaker 3: So we're making packs.
Speaker 4: Families in our programer buying packs for an average of
Speaker 4: twenty dollars, we're making packs for three point fifty and
Speaker 4: of course not charging them and donating them. And it's
Speaker 4: it's something that manufacturing is allowing us to move the needle.
Speaker 3: Still scratch the surface, but move the needle.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, no, definitely moving the needle. And I mean I'm
Speaker 1: blown away because it's like it's incredible marketing mixed with
Speaker 1: incredible systems, incredible management, like you know, the campaign that
Speaker 1: you were just mentioning with gwynethan Goop like that is
Speaker 1: like something out of like a movie. Like to be
Speaker 1: able to pull something like that off and to actually
Speaker 1: think about it in that innovative way and to then
Speaker 1: build a system that's manufacturing your own diapers because you
Speaker 1: see the value of cost. I mean, you're operating like
Speaker 1: an incredible the innovative, fast forward, fast forward thinking company
Speaker 1: and you're applying it all to doing good in the world.
Speaker 1: Like has that always has this strategic marketing brain always
Speaker 1: been between you two, Like how have you you know,
Speaker 1: how have you been able to think about changing the
Speaker 1: world in this way? Because I think that. Like you said,
Speaker 1: I think change can often feel boring, It can feel
Speaker 1: like slow, it can feel like it has to be
Speaker 1: done in a certain way. But you are willing to
Speaker 1: like push boundaries and maybe some people get upset in
Speaker 1: the beginning. To get them to make a point like
Speaker 1: that's a really original, unique way of thinking about change.
Speaker 2: I think we're not scared to push boundaries. And I
Speaker 2: think both of us, you know, people say to us
Speaker 2: all the time like, oh, did you ever think baby
Speaker 2: to baby would be this big? And we say, yes,
Speaker 2: we did. We did because we saw the need, we saw,
Speaker 2: you know, what we needed to do, and we went
Speaker 2: for it. And we do that every day. And so
Speaker 2: being innovative and coming up with fun, you know, exciting
Speaker 2: marketing things or whatever we're doing. I think bringing the
Speaker 2: commune unity together and collaborating with whether it's celebrity or
Speaker 2: corporate partners, is something that we love doing and that
Speaker 2: we will continue to do. And we've done it in
Speaker 2: so many ways like this year, you know, we talk
Speaker 2: about all the time. We partnered with the White House
Speaker 2: and HHS and twenty twenty three last year and we
Speaker 2: launched a pilot program that was creating maternal newborn supply kits,
Speaker 2: and we did it for the three states with the
Speaker 2: highest maternal mortality rates and the highest child poverty rates.
Speaker 2: And so it was a pilot program for these three states, Arkansas,
Speaker 2: New Mexico, and Louisiana. And we're in partnership with the
Speaker 2: White House and HHS, and the Vice President came to
Speaker 2: Baby to Baby to launch it with us. This year,
Speaker 2: we're now able to go to ten states with Huggies.
Speaker 2: Back to Huggies. Huggies came back in and their partnership
Speaker 2: with a multimillion dollar pledge, we're now going to take
Speaker 2: it to ten states. So that pilot program, you know,
Speaker 2: it's public private partnerships, it's corporate partners it's using you know,
Speaker 2: celebrity like we did from day one. We just had
Speaker 2: Olivia Wilde, Kelly Roland and Sierra came to help spread
Speaker 2: the word that we're you know, now in ten states
Speaker 2: and we're bringing this pilot program to ten states this year.
Speaker 2: And just being able to do things like that, I
Speaker 2: think definitely keeps our days exciting and you know, makes
Speaker 2: it interesting and innovative, and I think nonprofit can be.
Speaker 2: So I think we're trying to like make that part
Speaker 2: of nonprofit. It doesn't have to be boring, it doesn't
Speaker 2: have to be status quo, you know.
Speaker 4: And I think everyone won in that example that Kelly
Speaker 4: just gave about our maternal mortality initiative, in that the
Speaker 4: celebrity ambassadors who are so amazing, the three women that
Speaker 4: came to get attention for the program, they care deeply
Speaker 4: about eternal mortality. Obviously, your audience is familiar with how
Speaker 4: in the United States the maternal mortality rates are worse
Speaker 4: than they were twenty years ago, and that black women
Speaker 4: are dying at three times or four times, up to
Speaker 4: four times the rate of other women. And I think
Speaker 4: everyone wants to come up with a solution, I hope.
Speaker 4: And so in that example, it really was a real
Speaker 4: public private partnership with Again, we had the White House
Speaker 4: and Department of Health and Human Services on that end
Speaker 4: needing to give it legitimacy and the platform that they
Speaker 4: bring to the table. Huggi's was such an important partner
Speaker 4: on the corporate end because these programs need money and
Speaker 4: they need supplies, and so they had the diapers, they
Speaker 4: had the breastfeeding supplies, and they were able to donate
Speaker 4: those women like Olivia Wilde and Sierra and Kelly Roland.
Speaker 4: They cared deeply about maternal mortality and wanted to use
Speaker 4: their platforms, use their enormous social media numbers, and bring
Speaker 4: attention to a problem and.
Speaker 3: Show that they were coming up with a solution.
Speaker 4: Baby Baby has this incredible team that is there to
Speaker 4: have worked for thirteen years to identify which states and
Speaker 4: which organizations in which states have the most vulnerable mothers
Speaker 4: who could get to the right hospitals these items that
Speaker 4: they so desperately need. So I think it's really attacking.
Speaker 4: I think one of the things that Kelly and I
Speaker 4: really love about it is attacking these problems from multiple angles.
Speaker 4: And so yes, we bring in the like we understand
Speaker 4: and can explain to people why we need the help
Speaker 4: of the corporation, what the government can do to help,
Speaker 4: what part the celebrity or ambassador can play, And I
Speaker 4: think they all appreciate that, and again it's led to
Speaker 4: this great program.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I'm hearing is like a very deep understanding
Speaker 1: of the problem is what's allowing you to engage with
Speaker 1: all these stakeholders, Like the reason you're able to get
Speaker 1: the government involved, or get corporations involved, or get celebrities
Speaker 1: involved is because you deeply understand the intricacies of the challenge.
Speaker 1: And I think often and we want to do good
Speaker 1: in the world, or when we're trying to do good
Speaker 1: in the world, we're hoping that that good intention is enough,
Speaker 1: or we're hoping that that passion is enough, and actually
Speaker 1: deeply understanding the challenge and the stresses that people are experiencing,
Speaker 1: the problems people go through on a daily basis is
Speaker 1: at the heart of that. And one of my favorite
Speaker 1: thoughts is from Martin Luther King where he said that
Speaker 1: people who love peace need to learn to organize themselves
Speaker 1: as well as those who love war. And I love
Speaker 1: that statement because I often feel that those of us
Speaker 1: who want peace in the world or goodness in the
Speaker 1: world can be kind of a bit woo woo about it,
Speaker 1: or we can be a bit like, you know, peace
Speaker 1: and love, and it can be kind of like this
Speaker 1: really nice idea or nice ideal, but it doesn't have systems,
Speaker 1: organization strategy. And it seems like you've both been able
Speaker 1: to take your passion and intention and bring that in
Speaker 1: so wonderfully, which is such an incredible example for so
Speaker 1: many not for profits.
Speaker 4: Thank you and I think we really don't differentiate between
Speaker 4: nonprofit and for profit in that way, and so that's
Speaker 4: something that we care about reminding people that, again, the
Speaker 4: work is different, but the way that you run a company,
Speaker 4: in our minds, should be the same, and that's kind
Speaker 4: of who we model ourselves after. Unfortunately, we have seen
Speaker 4: a lot of well intentioned people not give back in
Speaker 4: the right way. So to your point, I think in
Speaker 4: disaster relief in particular is an area I know we
Speaker 4: talked about on your tour, and we see a lot
Speaker 4: of people trying to be helpful in disasters and doing
Speaker 4: it in an actively unhelpful way.
Speaker 3: And that is the place that I think the most.
Speaker 4: We've watched people and it's hard to watch, and we're
Speaker 4: trying to kind of correct people's behaviors in how they
Speaker 4: react to disasters because the public, I think, and I'm
Speaker 4: sure your listeners care deeply about disasters, and by disasters,
Speaker 4: I'm mainly talking about natural disasters, so hurricanes, buyers, floods, mudslides.
Speaker 4: People feel so helpless in those moments. I think people
Speaker 4: watch them on the news, they get so much attention,
Speaker 4: they see horrible things happening, and they don't know how
Speaker 4: to help, and what we've done a Baby to Baby
Speaker 4: is try to very specifically help children and help families
Speaker 4: in those instances. Because a lot of great organizations are helping,
Speaker 4: they're typically focused on adults, and we focus on children.
Speaker 4: But in terms of people helping in sometimes a misguided way,
Speaker 4: we often go to the spots where the disasters are
Speaker 4: occurring and we'll watch people and they show up with
Speaker 4: bags of used clothing and used coloring books or unsized things,
Speaker 4: or half opened games and toys and things. Again, I
Speaker 4: think that people care so deeply and they're wonderful, and
Speaker 4: they're seeing a child on the news and thinking I
Speaker 4: need to go. I want to go give that child
Speaker 4: my blanket or this game or a toothbrush. But what
Speaker 4: we've learned is that you have to listen and understand
Speaker 4: what these families need and tied for as important as
Speaker 4: that is what the organization who's helping them needs, Because
Speaker 4: in a disaster, everyone is spread. Then often the people
Speaker 4: who are helping a disaster their own families are suffering
Speaker 4: from that same hurricane or fire or flood. So and
Speaker 4: the organizations are often small, they're not always large scale organizations.
Speaker 4: Often they're small volunteer based groups that are trying to
Speaker 4: do their best to give out supplies. So when you
Speaker 4: inundate them with things that they don't need at that time,
Speaker 4: they don't have room, they don't have the man or
Speaker 4: woman power to accept the items. People fly planes into
Speaker 4: places without having the right destination, and so we talk
Speaker 4: to partners who are on the ground saying these donations
Speaker 4: are blocking the roads. So they're not just not helpful,
Speaker 4: they are actively unhelpful. They are blocking our roads. We
Speaker 4: are trying to find missing people, we are trying to
Speaker 4: get emergency services out, and people are in their very
Speaker 4: very well intentioned ways, really hurting the system. So what
Speaker 4: we have learned organizationally is to listen so carefully and
Speaker 4: not just understand you need blankets, you need diapers, What
Speaker 4: size diapers do you need?
Speaker 3: How many do you need?
Speaker 4: Because if your space can only accommodate three pallets, you
Speaker 4: cannot send them six in the middle of a disaster.
Speaker 4: You have to send them three at a time. And
Speaker 4: I think for people listening, you have to listen to
Speaker 4: organizations you trust in how to help. It might be money,
Speaker 4: it might be the most helpful thing would be to
Speaker 4: send ten dollars to an organization. It might be an
Speaker 4: organization that allows you to say, we need toothbrushes, but
Speaker 4: you can't guess what people need. You have to step back,
Speaker 4: listen and then try to help people in the way
Speaker 4: that they need to be helped.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, I know. And it's so again, it's such
Speaker 1: an alien space when you're not on the ground or
Speaker 1: you're not aware, like it's just something you would never
Speaker 1: know about, Like when do you ever learn about what's
Speaker 1: needed in a disaster or how you trying to help
Speaker 1: in a well intentioned way, whether it helps or it
Speaker 1: doesn't or gets in the way. So I really appreciate
Speaker 1: that kind of spotlight on that topic, which you wouldn't
Speaker 1: come across at all. Walk me through like you've like
Speaker 1: you said, and you're both modest and humble beings, and
Speaker 1: so there's the feeling of like there's more to do,
Speaker 1: and I think there's an honest side of you that
Speaker 1: sees that as well, and that there's just obviously so
Speaker 1: much more work to do. But what goes through some
Speaker 1: of the resistance that came early on, like building something
Speaker 1: this big, or some of the challenges or pitfalls that
Speaker 1: you both had days where you woke up wanting to
Speaker 1: make the biggest change, but things weren't going in your favor.
Speaker 1: Because I think again, whenever, and this is why I
Speaker 1: love podcasts, it's whenever we hear about something, we always
Speaker 1: hear about how amazing it is and the glory of it,
Speaker 1: and you don't really get to see like how much
Speaker 1: hard work goes into it every single day and the
Speaker 1: times when it isn't the big celebrity turning up to
Speaker 1: the front door. It's not always like that. And yes,
Speaker 1: you've had amazing support, and we'll talk about that in
Speaker 1: a second, but that's not you know, as we were
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, that's not three hundred and sixty four
Speaker 1: days A Yeah, there's all of this time where there's
Speaker 1: real work happening. And I'm sure, and I'm sure getting
Speaker 1: a sales tax changed is like an arduous process with
Speaker 1: so many you know, I'm guessing and I could be
Speaker 1: completely wrong, but I'm guessing there's like multiple steps to
Speaker 1: even get one state to accept that, let alone the
Speaker 1: numbers you have. Walk me through some of the key
Speaker 1: challenges you've seen in trying to build an innovative, fast growing,
Speaker 1: impactful nonprofit.
Speaker 2: We talk about this a lot. We have yesterdays and
Speaker 2: we have no days.
Speaker 1: Okay, what is it? Yeah, tell me about that.
Speaker 2: So yesterday is if everything's going right and we're asking
Speaker 2: this celebrity to host this event for this you know, corporation,
Speaker 2: and we're going to get a donation of five million
Speaker 2: diapers and five million wipes and everything's going great and
Speaker 2: they say yes. And then you're reaching out to a
Speaker 2: donor and saying, oh, you know, we need a grant
Speaker 2: for formula. The formula shortage is still continuing, and we
Speaker 2: are trying to provide, like, you know, a million more
Speaker 2: bottles across the country because another plant is shutting down.
Speaker 2: Or we're asking for a sponsor for our holiday event
Speaker 2: so we can take over Dodger Stadium again this year,
Speaker 2: or back to school so we can take over Madison
Speaker 2: Square Garden and bring kids to like have the most
Speaker 2: spectacular day of their lives and kids that never get
Speaker 2: to do those things. So we're asking all day long
Speaker 2: for things, and some days there's yes days and we
Speaker 2: get yeses, and then a lot of days there's no days.
Speaker 2: So we've we got this advice very early on that
Speaker 2: if you're having a yes day, keep asking, So we
Speaker 2: keep asking, we keep going, and then when we're having
Speaker 2: a no day, we're like, oh, it feels like no day,
Speaker 2: and we'll give. Like some of our team members like
Speaker 2: no day, everyone stop asking for things. But you know,
Speaker 2: we are not afraid to ask. And I think we
Speaker 2: learned this very early on because we're not asking for ourselves.
Speaker 2: We're asking for children who don't have diapers, who don't
Speaker 2: have clothing, who don't have food, Families who are struggling
Speaker 2: to afford these basic things. So never are we afraid
Speaker 2: to ask. And even if we do get knows, which
Speaker 2: we do all the time, it may from afar appear
Speaker 2: oh baby to baby's so successful. Sure it looks that way.
Speaker 4: An email chains where we've written to the person like
Speaker 4: fifteen times and it's all blue or green.
Speaker 2: We're not hearing answers were Yeah, we're used to the face.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter because we're not asking for ourselves. We're
Speaker 2: asking for, you know, children who are struggling to afford
Speaker 2: these basic things, So it never phases us.
Speaker 4: Two examples of some challenges. One is we did not
Speaker 4: get the sales tax repealed on our first try. In fact,
Speaker 4: we got very directly rejected on our first few times
Speaker 4: going to Sacramento trying to get California to repeal the
Speaker 4: sales tax. At California, we just got big nos and
Speaker 4: we resent home and packing, but we went back and again,
Speaker 4: I think we really don't take these things personally. I
Speaker 4: think we feel the two of us, that is another
Speaker 4: thing we share. We feel so strongly that our mission,
Speaker 4: about our mission and what it is and what we're doing,
Speaker 4: that it's like, well, you lost the opportunity.
Speaker 3: That's a mistake on your part to the state. So
Speaker 3: we just kept going back. On the third try, we
Speaker 3: brought Julie Bowen with us, which was helpful.
Speaker 4: Again we always learned sometimes an ambassador is what closes
Speaker 4: the deal. Governor Newsom was extremely helpful to us, and
Speaker 4: it was a third time. It's a charm example, but
Speaker 4: we were shut down and if we hadn't gone back
Speaker 4: a number of times, and of course you're correct, that
Speaker 4: is not what we post about and talk about. Two
Speaker 4: the times that we got back on the Southwest flight
Speaker 4: from Sacramento with a big thumbstone about the nose.
Speaker 3: But it worked, and so that was a good story.
Speaker 4: I think one of the hardest decisions we've had to
Speaker 4: make is that at the beginning of Baby to Baby,
Speaker 4: we would allow people to drop off or send us
Speaker 4: and mail in gently used items clothing, toys, cribs, car seats,
Speaker 4: you name it. And it was a beautiful thing because
Speaker 4: it's really where the name Baby to Baby comes from.
Speaker 4: Is the idea of giving another child something that you
Speaker 4: have used and now this other child can grow from.
Speaker 4: That is wonderful and we hope that smaller organizations continue
Speaker 4: to do that, whether it's an organization or a religious
Speaker 4: institution or a women's shelter.
Speaker 3: It's wonderful when people can do it.
Speaker 4: What we found was, in order to scale Baby to Baby,
Speaker 4: that could not be the core of our mission, because
Speaker 4: getting tons of pounds of people's gently use stuff, as
Speaker 4: noble as it sounds, was not working for us. It
Speaker 4: was expensive to go through because it's so important to
Speaker 4: us that everything we give out is something that is
Speaker 4: in pristine and perfect condition to these children who deserve
Speaker 4: things to be in pristine, in perfect condition, and so
Speaker 4: we had to have someone touch every single item of
Speaker 4: clothing and see that a onesie had spit up on it,
Speaker 4: see that a puzzle that was three hundred pieces had
Speaker 4: three hundred pieces and not two fifty eight, because no
Speaker 4: child wants to do a puzzle with two hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty eight pieces. It doesn't matter who you are. And
Speaker 4: there were expired things. There were things that weren't for
Speaker 4: children and people. Again I think they were well intentioned people,
Speaker 4: but they dropped in.
Speaker 3: Their adults. What there are some things that we got.
Speaker 2: Everything you can about to drive, sets, brahs, all sorts
Speaker 2: of things, and only about one third of what was
Speaker 2: donated when we were accepting gently used items as best,
Speaker 2: one third was usable.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: So it's expensive and time consuming and not helpful. So
Speaker 4: we have the lion's share of what we do now
Speaker 4: is all corporate donations. We gave out sixty three million
Speaker 4: dollars of goods last year. We still we don't want
Speaker 4: to scare people off with those numbers, because one, a
Speaker 4: donation of four cans of formula is amazing for us.
Speaker 4: There is truly no donation two big or too small,
Speaker 4: because four cans of formula is many bottles for many
Speaker 4: babies who need it so deeply. So we love small
Speaker 4: and big donations. But the but we take new corporate
Speaker 4: and palatized donations because it's the way we're able to
Speaker 4: give out four hundred and fifty million items. But that
Speaker 4: was a very hard turning point, and when you're talking
Speaker 4: about lessons and challenges, I think it was upsetting to
Speaker 4: a lot of people because I think people really love
Speaker 4: the idea of passing things forward. And again we love
Speaker 4: it too, which is why we adopted it in the beginning,
Speaker 4: but it proved to be not effective for scaling, and
Speaker 4: so that was a hard decision to have to make.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I'm hearing is just this idea that you know,
Speaker 1: these things are beautiful and they are wonderful, and when
Speaker 1: we can share what we have and something that's been
Speaker 1: used in advance and if it helps a community center
Speaker 1: or someone in our locale or a family member or
Speaker 1: something that's recycled is beautiful. But when you're trying to
Speaker 1: scale across the country, it's and also disasters as well,
Speaker 1: that isn't necessarily the most effective way. And I feel
Speaker 1: that that's again going back to this idea, no longer
Speaker 1: time one hundred named you want of the most innovative
Speaker 1: companies like that lesson of being able to adapt and
Speaker 1: be flexible and learn and grow and say okay, well,
Speaker 1: we actually believe in this, but it doesn't actually work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very hard to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't imagine what that feels like because you're like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this obviously makes sense to us, and
Speaker 1: it makes sense to me listening to you both, but
Speaker 1: then like, oh, I get why that isn't the idea
Speaker 1: that takes off and that isn't the idea that works
Speaker 1: in practice. I mean that thinking that thought process goes
Speaker 1: back to being a fast thinking company. This these challenges
Speaker 1: though they they haven't like it feels like you both
Speaker 1: have just got more passionate, more.
Speaker 2: Driven all right through that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it feels like that. Like I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm talking to you both today and I
Speaker 1: don't feel any dwindling of enthusiasm in your building.
Speaker 2: It feels like the time they're like, oh, so are
Speaker 2: you guys you know, bored or you go already at all? No,
Speaker 2: We're like, no, there's we're reaching one million children across
Speaker 2: the country. There are ten million more children in poverty
Speaker 2: that we're not yet reaching. We talked about we've distributed
Speaker 2: two hundred million diapers. We need one point five billion,
Speaker 2: and that's just to cover the kids we're serving now
Speaker 2: the one million children, So we have so much further
Speaker 2: to go. And I don't think either of us are
Speaker 2: stopping or done anytime.
Speaker 3: I So we have fun things happen. I mean we
Speaker 3: do have.
Speaker 4: We are we've built baby to baby to a place,
Speaker 4: and we're so lucky about this with these amazing ambassadors
Speaker 4: where we also we work. Our team is the hardest
Speaker 4: working team on the planet. But we also get some
Speaker 4: great incoming calls. I mean we get calls to say
Speaker 4: that someone I'm thanking Julie Bowen again, but that Julie
Speaker 4: Bowen played on it. Who wants to be a millionaire
Speaker 4: one five hundred thousand dollars and where should she send
Speaker 4: the check? We have Kim Kardashian raising her hand at
Speaker 4: our gala to give us. She's given us over two
Speaker 4: million dollars. And then we'll say for our Mother's Day event,
Speaker 4: can she donate skims and the makeup products so that
Speaker 4: moms feel as good as they should.
Speaker 3: At mother Day?
Speaker 2: We have Christy Teagan just you know, designed a wagon
Speaker 2: for us and it was for hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 2: dollars from a company. Or we have all these like
Speaker 2: ambassadors all day long that are doing these amazing partnerships.
Speaker 2: Molly Sims just did an Air one smoothie to benefit
Speaker 2: Baby to Baby. Just like all day long, we have
Speaker 2: these exciting things and some of them are just incoming,
Speaker 2: and some of them were reaching out to people. Jenna Duan,
Speaker 2: nine months pregnant, just hosted our Mother's Day event and
Speaker 2: was the ambassador, and aquafor gave us an amazing donation
Speaker 2: of product and money. And so just on and on
Speaker 2: we had these amazing people supporting us and showing.
Speaker 4: Us ideas like the Gwennas story. I mean, Gwenneth gets
Speaker 4: all the credit for that campaign. So people are coming
Speaker 4: to us.
Speaker 3: I think once you once, we.
Speaker 4: You know, we were saying how we had Sierra at
Speaker 4: the headquarters the other day and she was helping us
Speaker 4: amplify this maternal mortality project. The next day she called
Speaker 4: us that she had just talked to a sponsor and
Speaker 4: she wanted to see if she could they could help
Speaker 4: donate items for these kids in the future. She also
Speaker 4: wanted to tell us that she and Russell Wilson, her husband,
Speaker 4: wrote a children's book. Could she donate thousands of books
Speaker 4: to put into the bag. So I think when we're
Speaker 4: the more we educate all of these women about what
Speaker 4: Baby Baby's doing, they then they bring us these amazing
Speaker 4: opportunities because they want to help. And I think other
Speaker 4: people that haven't, that don't have careers in giving back,
Speaker 4: they have extremely busy lives, but they want to give back.
Speaker 3: They love the idea.
Speaker 4: So if we can give them a tangible way to
Speaker 4: give back and not spend a lot of time and
Speaker 4: use their platforms and use their connections, they're excited to
Speaker 4: help and do that. I think Kamala Harris, I think,
Speaker 4: you know, we're so grateful. She came to the warehouse
Speaker 4: to launch the program. She met with mothers in our
Speaker 4: program who were giving earth and was hearing from them,
Speaker 4: and I think she was also proud to be there.
Speaker 3: So we have a lot of we have a lot
Speaker 3: of fun incoming phone casts these days.
Speaker 1: How was it the first time? Like what was woke
Speaker 1: me through the interaction of getting jessic Aalba, Nicole Richie
Speaker 1: to get involved when it was just like there was
Speaker 1: nothing there In one sense it was beginning days like
Speaker 1: what was that conversation? Like why did they get involved.
Speaker 2: In Well, they were friends, But also I think when
Speaker 2: you're a mom and they just both had babies around
Speaker 2: thirteen years ago. And I think when you understand that,
Speaker 2: you know you need all these things when you.
Speaker 1: Give birth pasenal experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you see how much you need, You see
Speaker 2: how expensive it is. You see the wastefulness of people
Speaker 2: are giving you seven strollers for your baby shower. You
Speaker 2: need one stroller? What could you do with the other six?
Speaker 2: Who could use them? And it was a lot about that.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, mother's parents. People connect to the
Speaker 2: cause because it's such a simple cause. Children are going
Speaker 2: without basic essentials. How could that be? What could I
Speaker 2: do to help? And we make it very easy. We say, oh,
Speaker 2: you know what, here's what you do to help. Will
Speaker 2: make it very easy. We'll make it very simple. We
Speaker 2: need you to show up here to this one event.
Speaker 2: And they got their photo taken. It was in US
Speaker 2: Weekly and that really put us on the map, and
Speaker 2: that really spurred on like these celebrity partnerships. It taught
Speaker 2: us the power of celebrity, what they could do to
Speaker 2: help children need and how we could help make that happen.
Speaker 2: And so we've continued that for thirteen years. But we
Speaker 2: really do look to them as the two people who
Speaker 2: sort of set off that light bulb for both of
Speaker 2: us and really started the whole thing.
Speaker 4: I think that these women trust us and trust Baby
Speaker 4: to Baby and that has been so important to build.
Speaker 3: So now when there is a.
Speaker 4: You know, there's hurricanes going on, and the hurricanes and
Speaker 4: tornadoes in the in the Midwest, when there were the
Speaker 4: fires in Maui, when there was the formula shortage, when
Speaker 4: there are news headlines that and people, as moms and
Speaker 4: as humans care about them, they call us to say,
Speaker 4: tell me how I can help. Ever since that day,
Speaker 4: so they're saying, you know, during COVID, we had Prince
Speaker 4: Harry and Megan Markle and Gwyneth Paltrow and Jen Garner
Speaker 4: and Jessica Alba, and they came and put backpacks into
Speaker 4: cars that were driving by and putting lunch and backpacks
Speaker 4: with full masks, putting them into windows in our Baby
Speaker 4: to Baby distribution drives because they knew we would have one.
Speaker 3: They knew we'd be set up and they'd be able
Speaker 3: to help.
Speaker 4: And so I think what that caused on day one
Speaker 4: was this trust and then they will Disaster is a
Speaker 4: big part of it. But when there is any issue
Speaker 4: they care about in any state. We have ambassadors from
Speaker 4: Texas and Oklahoma and New Mexico and New York, and
Speaker 4: they know if there's something big or small. Sometimes it's
Speaker 4: a building fire that impacts the city, and they know
Speaker 4: there were families there. When they see families and they
Speaker 4: see babies or outside or not being taken care of,
Speaker 4: they know that Baby to Baby's Disaster team is going
Speaker 4: to be there, and they call us, how can I
Speaker 4: amplify it? And sometimes the answer is they can post
Speaker 4: on social media. Sometimes the answer is, even though this
Speaker 4: person might be famous, what we need right now is money.
Speaker 3: So we need you to do one of two things.
Speaker 3: We need you to ask your.
Speaker 4: Followers for donations, or if you're in the position, we
Speaker 4: need you to donate to us yourself. So in the
Speaker 4: Maui wildfires, for example, Matthew and Camilla McConaughey. Camilla is
Speaker 4: one of our many angels, and they had a deep
Speaker 4: caring for Hawaii and Maui. Knew that we would be
Speaker 4: on the ground there, knew that we would know how
Speaker 4: to help and what to help with. They called, they
Speaker 4: asked how they could help. The answer there was, we
Speaker 4: were trying to get cargo planes in. We knew the
Speaker 4: exact menu of what these organizations needed. Maui's was a
Speaker 4: very specific example because it was easier for us. Our
Speaker 4: history had been in trucking, and Maui can't track to Maui,
Speaker 4: so these things now had to go on planes. And
Speaker 4: it was a and the fires were ongoing and horrific,
Speaker 4: and they said, how can we help? And we said, actually,
Speaker 4: what we need you to do right now is help
Speaker 4: us pay for this first cargo plane to get out,
Speaker 4: because we know if you do that, others will follow.
Speaker 4: So they that was just pure funds they gave us.
Speaker 4: The cargo plane went out, it got to Maui. We
Speaker 4: helped so many families. Nine months later, we're still helping families.
Speaker 4: Disasters do not end a week later.
Speaker 3: The families.
Speaker 4: There's still displaces families, there's families living in hotels, there's
Speaker 4: families that have lost jobs. And because of that initial
Speaker 4: vote of confidence from to very well known ambassadors, we
Speaker 4: had people all over the country sending us twenty five
Speaker 4: dollar donations that add up significantly and have allowed us
Speaker 4: to have this long term recovery.
Speaker 2: And Matthew did a video with his son that went
Speaker 2: viral and it was you know, everywhere, it was all
Speaker 2: over Instagram, it was in people, and it was saying like,
Speaker 2: this is what my family's doing. I want to help
Speaker 2: these families in Maui. We were going to come together
Speaker 2: and we're donating this amount, please join us. And because
Speaker 2: that video went viral and he used his platform and
Speaker 2: that really took off in such a way. That's why
Speaker 2: we've been able to continue helping for nine months, because
Speaker 2: we were able to raise that money in that moment,
Speaker 2: and that really extended our you know, finances to be
Speaker 2: able to pay and ship and send more and more
Speaker 2: palettes and palettes of basic essentials into Maui for the
Speaker 2: families we serve there.
Speaker 4: And speaking of Maui, a quick shout out to our
Speaker 4: program and disaster relief teams. Something that made us so
Speaker 4: proud during that horrific period was that because of the
Speaker 4: year round work we do, getting to know these partners,
Speaker 4: listening to them. Our team had two days before the
Speaker 4: fires broke out, had made a delivery on Hawaii, so
Speaker 4: that when it was impossible to get anything in from
Speaker 4: the mainland United States, our stuff had just landed. Because
Speaker 4: we were helping families who were living in poverty beyond
Speaker 4: the fires, and so immediately we were able to start distributing.
Speaker 2: And talking about you know, listening to the community and
Speaker 2: listening and asking questions and seeing what's needed. We have
Speaker 2: these partners that are in Maui, and we were able
Speaker 2: to say to them, do you need help? Do you
Speaker 2: know what do you need? And the water was contaminated
Speaker 2: and babies, there was no baby food, there was no formula.
Speaker 2: So we immediately were able to send on that very
Speaker 2: first cargo plane water, formula and babyfood, and then our
Speaker 2: team later two weeks later, because we didn't want to
Speaker 2: inundate the island with you know, at the time, I
Speaker 2: think there was such an outpouring, but to listen and
Speaker 2: wait and talk to our partner, and they asked us
Speaker 2: to come two weeks later, and then we were able
Speaker 2: to do distributions on the ground to families ourselves and
Speaker 2: really see the need and meet with families. But we
Speaker 2: were alongside a woman who had lost her home, who
Speaker 2: worked for the diaper bank that it was our partner.
Speaker 2: She lost her home, her you know, her baby was
Speaker 2: off in the office of the nonprofit that we were serving.
Speaker 2: She was there alongside us doing distributions, so you really
Speaker 2: have to listen to the community that you're serving, and
Speaker 2: that was something we definitely learn with everything we do,
Speaker 2: but that was definitely a learning moment for us.
Speaker 1: This is it's such incredible work and it's so inspiring,
Speaker 1: Like even hearing these stories of all these different spaces
Speaker 1: and the nuances and the differences and the incredible ambassadors
Speaker 1: that came on board. I know that a lot of
Speaker 1: my community here today who's listening and watching, will be
Speaker 1: thinking how do I help? How do I get involved?
Speaker 1: And I think as that culture that I think you
Speaker 1: both have lived in your own life and wanted to create,
Speaker 1: and something that I feel as amazing as if we
Speaker 1: can start helping from where we are, no matter where
Speaker 1: we are and whoever we are and every like you said,
Speaker 1: everything does matter and it does make an impact. And
Speaker 1: I've seen that through fundraises we've done for charities I've
Speaker 1: worked with. What can this community and audience do if
Speaker 1: they want to support baby to baby today? Where should
Speaker 1: they go? What can they do? How can they learn more?
Speaker 2: I think we say every little bit helps, and when
Speaker 2: we say we've distributed two hundred million diapers, that's a
Speaker 2: big number, but one pack of diapers goes to a
Speaker 2: family who's struggling to afford diapers or food, who's choosing
Speaker 2: between diapers or food. So if you can give one
Speaker 2: pack of diapers, five packs of diapers, whether that's ten
Speaker 2: dollars or twenty five dollars, those things really make a difference.
Speaker 2: And we always say no donation is too small. Those
Speaker 2: things really matter to us. And that's one family who
Speaker 2: has formula for their baby, who has diapers for their
Speaker 2: baby that week. So we're not shying away from any
Speaker 2: small donations at all. And a lot of what we
Speaker 2: do is on our Instagram Baby to Baby and or
Speaker 2: our website babydobaby dot org. But one of the things
Speaker 2: that we talk about as well is that you know,
Speaker 2: follow us and see what we're doing. We are posting
Speaker 2: all day. You know what we're doing right now sending supplies.
Speaker 2: We just sent three hundred thousand supplies to Oklahoma and
Speaker 2: Texas to the disasters that are going on there. So
Speaker 2: it's always you know, something's happening in the world. Climate
Speaker 2: change is really making these disasters worse and worse every day,
Speaker 2: and supporting our work helping families and need in those
Speaker 2: moments is really important to us.
Speaker 3: I hope you've learned getting to know us.
Speaker 4: We're very direct, and so we'll be direct with our followers,
Speaker 4: and I think we tell our ambassadors and any donor
Speaker 4: or fan of Baby to Baby, we will tell you
Speaker 4: what we need.
Speaker 3: And so we'll say we right now.
Speaker 4: Need toothbrushes and toothpaste because there is a reason that
Speaker 4: there is a shortage of those, or we will tell
Speaker 4: you in the formula crisis what we need exactly. And
Speaker 4: even though I did say that we don't take you know,
Speaker 4: we're not looking for big donations of gently used clothing.
Speaker 4: There are some exceptions to that, and that's basically diapers
Speaker 4: and formula and some of these top things. So it
Speaker 4: might be your own diaper packs and formula cans that
Speaker 4: you haven't opened. It might be going on Amazon or
Speaker 4: another platform and sending us actual items. It might be
Speaker 4: making a smaller large donation. It might be an introduction
Speaker 4: to a company that can make a very large donation.
Speaker 4: But it might be that you have a small clothing
Speaker 4: brand and you have you made some pajamas and they
Speaker 4: came out in a slightly different color than you intended,
Speaker 4: and we would love to take those and it might
Speaker 4: be that your toothpaste came out a different flavor, and
Speaker 4: as long as it's good and healthy, we want those calls.
Speaker 4: Would you like our you know, these palettes of toothpaste
Speaker 4: that we haven't given out, so we again, following us
Speaker 4: means trying to listen to what the disaster is, what
Speaker 4: the everyday poverty is. If there's a specific city or
Speaker 4: town or that you're in, we're happy to respond to
Speaker 4: those questions. Our team is, but we want people to
Speaker 4: help in those and if someone wants to donate millions
Speaker 4: of dollars so we can reach our goal of giving
Speaker 4: out you know, we can get to all billion diapers,
Speaker 4: you know, if someone has a foundation who will do that,
Speaker 4: we're ready for that phone call as well.
Speaker 2: We say that we've built the infrastructure and we know
Speaker 2: how to get these items out to the community and
Speaker 2: to the country, and we're just looking for the funding
Speaker 2: to go even further. So the one million children we're serving,
Speaker 2: there are ten million that we're not yet reaching, and
Speaker 2: we are ready to reach them. It's just really funding
Speaker 2: that comes down to it.
Speaker 4: We also have programs where people can get involved at
Speaker 4: different ages. So if you live in an area that's
Speaker 4: you know, if you live in Los Angeles or New
Speaker 4: York or somewhere where we have volunteer sessions, obviously you
Speaker 4: can come in and volunteer, but we also have programs
Speaker 4: that the whole country can participate in where during the
Speaker 4: holidays you can shop for a child, but not just
Speaker 4: during the holidays, because a big lesson of baby to
Speaker 4: Baby is children do not just need help during the holidays.
Speaker 4: So we have programs that are about to start this
Speaker 4: summer because there is a summer slide and children aren't
Speaker 4: in school and so not only are they not getting
Speaker 4: the schooling during the summer, they're not getting the meals
Speaker 4: that they depend on for schools, so they're lacking in
Speaker 4: basic essentials even more.
Speaker 3: And so we have programs. We have back to school
Speaker 3: programs where you can.
Speaker 4: Take your child out shopping or go yourself and you
Speaker 4: can shop and we'll give you a list of what
Speaker 4: a child needs and maybe they want a blue Hello
Speaker 4: Kiddy backpack and cheese it and a new pencil case
Speaker 4: with pink hearts, and you can really a lot of
Speaker 4: people like that. Again, that specificity and that customization, we
Speaker 4: will let you you can reach a child on a
Speaker 4: very individualized basis, or you can help us with the
Speaker 4: donation of six hundred thousand pairs of pajamas.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. I love it. I want to go back
Speaker 1: to where we started, which was with your personal journeys
Speaker 1: of service and giving back. And Naur you brought this
Speaker 1: up earlier, this idea of parents wanting their children to
Speaker 1: have a culture of giving back. What have you found works?
Speaker 1: Because I find, like, when you're young, giving back is
Speaker 1: not cool, It's not the thing to do. It isn't
Speaker 1: part of our culture ordinarily, at least you don't see
Speaker 1: that very commonly. How do we do that? How do
Speaker 1: we create a culture in our families to begin with
Speaker 1: a culture of giving a culture of service in young people? Like?
Speaker 1: What does that take? What have you seen works, what
Speaker 1: doesn't work, and what has been effective?
Speaker 2: We wrote a book about it, actually, we wrote a
Speaker 2: book with Jessica Albert and it is about a little
Speaker 2: girl who has a teddy bear and it is a
Speaker 2: gently used teddy bear and then she receives the same
Speaker 2: but a brand new one, and she has to decide
Speaker 2: what she's going to do with the second one. Will
Speaker 2: she keep it, will she give it to a friend, when's.
Speaker 3: You going to tell them?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yes?
Speaker 2: And then when she decides to give it to a friend,
Speaker 2: the you know, she goes through the process of which
Speaker 2: one should I give to him? Should he have the
Speaker 2: one with no eye and missing an arm, or should
Speaker 2: she should he have the new one, and she talks
Speaker 2: about it with her mom and they figure out that,
Speaker 2: of course, someone who's in need would want a new bear,
Speaker 2: just like one day you had one. So that was
Speaker 2: something that we did because it's so important to us
Speaker 2: to teach children how to give back, but to give
Speaker 2: back with dignity, because all of the children that we're serving,
Speaker 2: we want to make sure that we're giving with dignity
Speaker 2: and pride so that they're receiving things that are new
Speaker 2: and just like our kids would want. So that was
Speaker 2: something that was really important to us.
Speaker 4: I think you can teach your kids at the earliest
Speaker 4: of ages to give back, and you know, maybe they'll
Speaker 4: understand five percent of it and then twenty percent of it.
Speaker 4: We have stories of taking your kids to go shopping
Speaker 4: for another child and when they're four, maybe they stop
Speaker 4: in the store and have and cry and say, I
Speaker 4: want that toy. I don't want to give that barbie
Speaker 4: to someone else. But you hold your ground. You don't
Speaker 4: give them the barbie. You explain the barbie is for
Speaker 4: someone else. And when they're six, it starts being easier.
Speaker 4: And maybe when they're seven or eight, they're asking you
Speaker 4: to go shopping for a barbie to give to someone
Speaker 4: at Christmas that doesn't have it, because now they understand,
Speaker 4: or they're an adult and they look back and understand
Speaker 4: why they were doing that, and they start doing it
Speaker 4: as an adult. But I think people are afraid to
Speaker 4: explain poverty to their children, in particular at two young
Speaker 4: of an age.
Speaker 3: And we've just been.
Speaker 4: Amazed by the children that come into Baby to Baby,
Speaker 4: the children that come to volunteer. They have such amazing
Speaker 4: questions and they understand and they point out things that
Speaker 4: we and even thought of. You know, you'll say to them,
Speaker 4: what do you think a child might need if if
Speaker 4: you didn't have a home.
Speaker 3: What might you need?
Speaker 4: And you think they're going to say, you know, food,
Speaker 4: or and they'll say like, I think they would need
Speaker 4: a night light or I think you know, they just
Speaker 4: say things that surprise you and they are paying attention,
Speaker 4: and I do think they understand, and I think you
Speaker 4: have to drive on the street and not ignore people
Speaker 4: experiencing homelessness. I think you have to point it out
Speaker 4: to your children and talk about what you should do,
Speaker 4: and talk about how they can help, and let them
Speaker 4: think about do we want to can we help with money?
Speaker 4: Can we can we give them food? Can we talk
Speaker 4: about why and how they're suffering and why they don't
Speaker 4: have a job. And I think you have to bring
Speaker 4: your children to any opportunity you have to participate in
Speaker 4: community service. I think it just changes people's perspective entirely
Speaker 4: to practice, to read about it, yes, to hear about
Speaker 4: it from your parents, Yes, to I hand someone who
Speaker 4: doesn't have food.
Speaker 3: A bag full of food.
Speaker 4: I really think changes your life and changes your perspective.
Speaker 4: And I think children, I think children are It's a
Speaker 4: great place to start. I love that about baby to baby,
Speaker 4: that there's a lot of problems in the world. I
Speaker 4: think people everyone can relate whether you have kids, you
Speaker 4: don't have kids, you are a kid, you are elderly.
Speaker 4: People understand and resonate with the idea of children not
Speaker 4: having basic essentials and clean diapers, and they empathize with children.
Speaker 4: People love babies, and so I think It's a great
Speaker 4: place to start, is that a baby needs this, and
Speaker 4: you should talk early and talk often and show them
Speaker 4: and teach them and bring them and do everything you
Speaker 4: can to instill it at a young age. And we've
Speaker 4: seen it working.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my daughter, I remember when I took her for
Speaker 2: the Christmas shopping. We call it family to family because
Speaker 2: it's one family giving to another family like baby to baby.
Speaker 2: And it was the moment where you know, yes, I
Speaker 2: want the barbie, Yes I want the pink Elsa Nighty two.
Speaker 2: But then when we got down the list and I
Speaker 2: was like, okay, well we need underwear. Should we get
Speaker 2: Elsa underwear? Should we get Sleeping Beauty underwear? And she
Speaker 2: looked at me and she was like, she doesn't have underwear.
Speaker 2: And you want to protect your child maybe in that moment,
Speaker 2: and I was like, no, she doesn't have underwear, she
Speaker 2: doesn't have any of these things, and having like the
Speaker 2: light bulb for her and her understand like we weren't
Speaker 2: just buying her a barbie, Like she didn't have underwear,
Speaker 2: she didn't have a blanket, she didn't have a warm coat,
Speaker 2: and really, like I think instilling that into your kids
Speaker 2: or kids around you is just so important. It's something
Speaker 2: that you know, both of us want to make sure
Speaker 2: that baby to baby is teaching children about giving back.
Speaker 1: What do you think parents are scared of in doing that?
Speaker 1: Like you said, like facing the homelessness, having that moment
Speaker 1: in saying no, she doesn't have underwear?
Speaker 2: What is I think they're too young to understand or
Speaker 2: it's too scary, the reality is too scary. But I
Speaker 2: think being able to tell them from a young age
Speaker 2: and obviously in an age appropriate way, but that's what
Speaker 2: we try and do. We try and keep you know,
Speaker 2: kids come in from seven and up and they are
Speaker 2: volunteering and they understand there's a baby who doesn't have
Speaker 2: a blanket, who doesn't have a onesie, who doesn't have
Speaker 2: a passy, and I'm going to make this for them,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to put this together for them, and
Speaker 2: then when I leave here, it's going to get delivered
Speaker 2: to them and I made it. And that pride that
Speaker 2: kids feel in that is really important and I think
Speaker 2: really instills that giving back in it.
Speaker 4: Maybe you can consider for your birthday party either having
Speaker 4: people give presents for kids who need presents more than
Speaker 4: you do, or if that's difficult which it is, and
Speaker 4: I'm not saying mine. We're so excited about it. I
Speaker 4: think sometimes our kids.
Speaker 3: Were like, wait, does this mean I never get a barbie?
Speaker 4: I just want to be clear, because we are just
Speaker 4: constantly telling them over and over.
Speaker 2: We have a joke where we would put their baby
Speaker 2: blanket in the car and they'd be like, is that
Speaker 2: going to baby to baby?
Speaker 3: We'd be like, no, no, you get to keep that right.
Speaker 4: But the part but it could be maybe you choose
Speaker 4: one toy that you got out of the twelve kids
Speaker 4: that came to your party, and you pick one toy
Speaker 4: and you give that away, or you you know, just
Speaker 4: lit little ways to start incorporating it early. And as
Speaker 4: far as what people are scared of, I think I
Speaker 4: think adults are scared of people experiencing homelessness. That's why
Speaker 4: I think they're scared to tell their kids because they're uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: But I actually think kids are much more comfortable.
Speaker 4: And so if we can raise this generation to not
Speaker 4: be afraid and to think of ways to help, I
Speaker 4: think that's that's our obligation. I know that I said this,
Speaker 4: but I think this concept that I learned as a
Speaker 4: little girl of takuna lam and sedaka and repairing the world.
Speaker 4: I think it sticks with you and you you have
Speaker 4: to trust that these kids are going to be a
Speaker 4: generation that are going to think you know you said before.
Speaker 4: Maybe people don't think it's trendy or cool. I think
Speaker 4: most people with companies would say that their customers feel
Speaker 4: otherwise and they only want to buy from companies who
Speaker 4: have a give back component. And it's not just Toms anymore,
Speaker 4: and that we have companies calling us all day saying
Speaker 4: we have to find it. We are giving back and
Speaker 4: again yes, because there have a wonderful leadership teams, but
Speaker 4: their customers demand it. And so if this generation of
Speaker 4: children can grow up saying we are going to be
Speaker 4: a part of this change, then I think and that's
Speaker 4: just been kind of a bonus of Baby to Baby
Speaker 4: because we didn't start it to teach kids to get back.
Speaker 4: We started it to first and foremost, we want kids
Speaker 4: who don't have what they need to have what they need,
Speaker 4: and we want children in poverty to have basic essentials.
Speaker 4: But there is this bonus is that in the process,
Speaker 4: if it can teach people who do have what they
Speaker 4: need to be a part of the solution. I think
Speaker 4: that's where the special stuff comes in.
Speaker 1: And or you're both or leaders truly inspiring and very
Speaker 1: touched by both your stories and even the space we
Speaker 1: just got to now of hearing this deep personal, much
Speaker 1: more individual, intimate version of what it looks like in
Speaker 1: your family is with your own children, with people around you.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's really truly moving. And before we
Speaker 1: end the show, we always do a final five, which
Speaker 1: is a fast five segment where you have to answer
Speaker 1: every word in Sorry, you have to answer every question
Speaker 1: in one word or one sentence maximum. But before we
Speaker 1: do that, I want to ask you, is there anything
Speaker 1: that I haven't asked you that you really feel compelled
Speaker 1: to share, or something that's on your heart that you
Speaker 1: feel you want to share with my community or audience
Speaker 1: that maybe we didn't touch on.
Speaker 2: Just that baby to baby is you know growing every day?
Speaker 2: Thirteen years later, we are serving a million children and
Speaker 2: we've distributed four hundred and fifty million items, and that
Speaker 2: from AFAR that it may seem like a success, but
Speaker 2: because there are still ten million children that we're not reaching,
Speaker 2: we have a lot further to go and a lot
Speaker 2: more work to do. So looking from Afar or looking
Speaker 2: on Instagram may it may seem like we're done or
Speaker 2: everything's great, but no, there's a lot of work to
Speaker 2: be done and we need to raise a lot more
Speaker 2: money and to reach a lot more kids. So it's
Speaker 2: we're not finished and we definitely need help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, brilliant well said, yeah, or anything.
Speaker 3: I concur We talk about that.
Speaker 4: We know that we get you know, we're lucky to
Speaker 4: get that, our ambassadors get attention. We are so lucky
Speaker 4: to be on Jayshetty. We have all of this, these
Speaker 4: great platforms. But the only negative of it is that
Speaker 4: it does lead people to think that we don't need
Speaker 4: help or that their help isn't enough because they see
Speaker 4: if Kim Kardashian is helping, what how could I really
Speaker 4: be of help? And if they're on you know when
Speaker 4: we're talking about twelve million dollars, well I don't have
Speaker 4: twelve million dollars to give. And so I concur it's
Speaker 4: the same lesson of please know that no donation is
Speaker 4: too small. Celebrities are wonderful, they are not fully funding
Speaker 4: our program, and we do need so much and it
Speaker 4: really is the entire community coming together that is going
Speaker 4: to allow us to keep doing more and more work.
Speaker 1: I think what's really beautiful also is that I'm sure
Speaker 1: some of our listeners are inside organizations that could be
Speaker 1: giving more and part of communities that could give more
Speaker 1: and maybe want their school to come and volunteer. Let
Speaker 1: you know, I think there's so many beautiful ways to
Speaker 1: give back, which is how I got involved with all
Speaker 1: of you, which ye, my team and I picked you
Speaker 1: to come and volunteer at for a service day and
Speaker 1: it's led to a more long term relationship. And I
Speaker 1: think that I think you have so many access points,
Speaker 1: and I also want to encourage everyone to hear that
Speaker 1: message too that I think what we can trust is
Speaker 1: that you're listening, you're learning, you're adapting, you're figuring out
Speaker 1: what the gap is. And that's why we can all
Speaker 1: help and support in that. We can trust that baby
Speaker 1: to baby is constantly trying to figure out what really
Speaker 1: serves the need, what really closes the gap, what really
Speaker 1: is going to have an impact.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, And you know, thirteen years in, we
Speaker 4: view ourselves as a startup still and we really have
Speaker 4: the startup mentality where we are looking for the phone
Speaker 4: to ring, and we are looking for other people to
Speaker 4: bring our team innovative ideas and.
Speaker 3: We want that help. We want someone to say I
Speaker 3: have shoes, but I have an idea, and.
Speaker 2: So yeah, Nike, if you're listening, we're yeah, desperatelyant need
Speaker 2: of sneakers.
Speaker 1: All right, we're left to go.
Speaker 3: You're ready for the game?
Speaker 1: I love it? Yes, thank you so much. All right,
Speaker 1: here's your fast five, final five, same questions to both
Speaker 1: of You'll just say the question and then we can
Speaker 1: go for it. So the first question is what is
Speaker 1: the best advice you've ever heard or received.
Speaker 2: I would say we talked about it the yesterday. I
Speaker 2: think saying yes to opportunities, especially in the beginning. We've
Speaker 2: had to reel that in a little thirteen years later,
Speaker 2: but saying yes to opportunities was a big part of
Speaker 2: how we grew baby to baby from day one.
Speaker 4: First day at my law firms, Scadden Arps and New
Speaker 4: York one hundred and thirty six associates, managing partner came
Speaker 4: out and said, I want you to assume that every
Speaker 4: single email you right will appear on the New York
Speaker 4: Times tomorrow morning.
Speaker 3: Be careful, and I.
Speaker 1: That's great to heart. Great, both great answers question number two,
Speaker 1: what is the worst advice you have ahead or received.
Speaker 2: That eight hours sleep isn't necessary?
Speaker 1: Isn't necessary?
Speaker 2: Yah?
Speaker 1: I agree for me, it is for me too.
Speaker 4: I agree with you two that you have to go
Speaker 4: out of your lane. I know lots of business leaders
Speaker 4: think you have to keep going outside of your lane.
Speaker 4: I think in our case, where we have a very
Speaker 4: specific mission, we are nowhere near done with what we're doing.
Speaker 4: I want our lane to be as narrow as possible,
Speaker 4: and then we want to crush our lane.
Speaker 1: Nice. Third question, what is your proudest achievement personally?
Speaker 2: I guess first you can yeah, I think Baby to Baby.
Speaker 1: I mean I think something specific.
Speaker 2: I think when we started we were serving five hundred
Speaker 2: children and it was the two of us and one intern.
Speaker 2: And looking thirteen years later that we're serving a million
Speaker 2: children across the country and we have warehouses across the country,
Speaker 2: fifty two employees here in LA. Just the growth of
Speaker 2: Baby to Baby is definitely a proud achievement for me.
Speaker 1: Beautiful.
Speaker 4: We were just honored to be named to Times Most
Speaker 4: Influential one hundred People in the World list. We absolutely
Speaker 4: take that on behalf of our incredible team of people.
Speaker 3: It is certainly not just the two of us.
Speaker 4: I read Time magazine with my dad growing up and
Speaker 4: would look at the covers every week and read it,
Speaker 4: and that honor for Baby to Baby was a big one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. I love that day hon at
Speaker 1: a service based organization rather than just a for profit
Speaker 1: organization as well. So that's beautiful. Question number four, why
Speaker 1: is it important to serve and give back?
Speaker 2: I think the world needs it, especially right now, and
Speaker 2: I think that if you think about elections and outcomes
Speaker 2: of elections, that organizations like Baby to Baby are so
Speaker 2: important because it's not based on the outcome of that.
Speaker 2: It's based on helping families in need and meeting them
Speaker 2: where they are and making sure they have what is
Speaker 2: necessary and basic essentials no matter what's going on in
Speaker 2: the environment and in the world.
Speaker 4: I think giving back is everything. I think it's because
Speaker 4: it's not about you. So I think it is the
Speaker 4: number one way to learn empathy and about other people
Speaker 4: and to remind yourself that everyone is going through something,
Speaker 4: everyone needs help, and giving back is about others.
Speaker 1: Well said. And fifth and final question, which we asked
Speaker 1: to every guest who's ever been on the show, if
Speaker 1: you could create one law that everyone in the world
Speaker 1: had to follow. What would it be.
Speaker 2: Mine would be that people and leaders led with empathy.
Speaker 4: I would say that service is mandatory, and not just
Speaker 4: for high school students or interns, that it's mandatory for
Speaker 4: people of all ages, from every background. And I think people,
Speaker 4: if they're not allergic, should have dogs.
Speaker 1: I love that. Norah and Kelly, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being such phenomenal guests on Purpose. Everyone who's been
Speaker 1: listening and watching, I hope you go and follow baby
Speaker 1: to baby right now. I want you to look at
Speaker 1: how you can find a way that you can help.
Speaker 1: Your communities, can help, your company can help the schools
Speaker 1: around you that can help. How can you get involved
Speaker 1: in being a part of this mission. I think when
Speaker 1: we feel like we're a part of the solution, the
Speaker 1: problem feels a little smaller every single day. And so
Speaker 1: I encourage you all to become empowered to take on
Speaker 1: this opportunity to join Nora and Kelly on this mission.
Speaker 1: And again, naur and Kelly, thank you so much. I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful to have spend this time with you. Thank
Speaker 1: you for being here with my community, and congratulations on
Speaker 1: all the work you've done and I'm rooting for you
Speaker 1: and forever in your corner to see who succeed.
Speaker 2: So thank you, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: Thank you. If you enjoyed this podcast, you're going to
Speaker 1: love my conversation with Michelle Obama where she opens up
Speaker 1: on how to stay with your partner when they're changing
Speaker 1: and the four check ins you should be doing in
Speaker 1: your relationship. We also talk about how to deal with
Speaker 1: relationships when they're under stressed. If you're going through something
Speaker 1: right now with your partner or someone you're seeing, this
Speaker 1: is the episode for you.
Speaker 2: Now, wonder our kids are struggling.
Speaker 3: We have a new technology and we've just taken it
Speaker 3: in Hookline and Sinker, and we have to be mindful
Speaker 3: for our kids. It'll just be thumbing through this stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, their their mind's never sleeping