This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

When community minded catalysts connect, lives of those who are vulnerable improve. When a member of the Diablo Valley Chapter of Project Linus, an organization that provides new, handmade blankets to at-risk infants in our community, connected with Assistance League of Diablo Valley’s Community Needs Program, hundreds of blankets were allotted to Baby Bags.

Since 2010, Assistance League of Diablo Valley’s Baby Bags program has donated 14,000 bags to identified families. Baby Bags include such support items as disposable diapers, baby wipes, onesies socks and burp cloths or bibs, and most recently baby blankets. Now, with the help of Project Linus, baby blankets are included.

The filled baby bags then advance to Aspiranet’s Welcome Home Baby division, a nonprofit family services agency that supports low income families in the community. The agency also provides early hospital identification, intensive in-home visitation and follow-up care to mothers with identified at-risk babies due to development problems.

When three community minded organizations connect, their efforts do not merely triple, they compound. To learn more about Assistance League of Diablo Valley’s 16 philanthropic programs, all of which are funded by its thrift shop located in Lafayette, please visit: assistanceleague.org/diablo-valley.

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