Earlier this month, we reported on a small fire with a big effect on WestSide Baby‘s operations – shutting down the WS Baby volunteer/donation center in White Center, from which the nonprofit serves thousands of families around the area. The resulting power outage isn’t fixed yet and so WS Baby’s executive director Nancy Woodland sends word they’re making an emergency move – and in need of multiple types of help:

On April 9, WestSide Baby’s main facility in White Center experienced a small electrical fire that eliminated power for our donation and volunteer center. This means we’ve been unable to fill orders for 350 children per week as the building is completely dark, cold and unsafe. Because this is not the first time this building has had major maintenance issues, we have decided to take a brave step and move our entire operation within the next week because leaving children in the lurch is unacceptable to us.

To get up and running as soon as possible, over the next 10 days we are moving our main donation and volunteer operations across the street into a warehouse where we have been storing diapers! We plan to open our doors at 10002 14th Ave SW by April 27.

This is a plan we have been working on for some time and had actually hoped to execute this summer. Because of the fire and resulting urgency, we have now divided it into Phases and we’ll start a little earlier than we expected by moving one component of our organization now. We’re excited to share updates on Phase 2 and 3 soon. It’s going to be great and we hope you will be excited to participate in our growth!

We have a list of opportunities for you to support this effort with your time or treasure. Both are critical at this point in order for us to be able to get back up and running and filling orders as soon as possible.

You can donate now at WestSideBaby.org to help us with the following things to get set up quickly:

Critical for Phase 1:

Shelving – $5000 Total ($300/each)
Signage – $2000
Pallet Stacker – Rent or Purchase
Canvas Bins – $1000 Total ($250 each)
Moving and Storage Expenses – $10,000

Things we’ll need for Phase 2 -3:

Moving Expenses – $15k
Industrial Carpet/Flooring
Painting help
Lumber

We will also have Volunteer Opportunities:

Tuesday, April 21 6-7 pm Car Seat moving
Friday, April 24 3-6 pm Shelf Assembly
Saturday, April 25 10 – 5 Moving!!
Sunday, April 26 9 – 5 Deconstruction of old facilty and clean up
Soon after – a small masonry and curb installation project needs a skilled professional

Contact Volunteer Manager, Shana Allen (shana@westsidebaby.org), if you are interested! We have some flexibility with this schedule and we anticipate more things unfolding this week. These are all physical projects.

To help us with backlog – we anticipate announcing additional Sorting Frenzies and Order Filling Opportunities the week of April 27. Let Shana know if you want to be on the lists to receive those updates!!