Volunteers Make 850 Care Packages For Families With Newborns

WAUWATOSA, WI -- Employee volunteers from United Healthcare assembled and donated more than $20,000 worth of care packages to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin on Wednesday, May 29.

The care packages feature items with personal stories and connections to other NICU family journeys and include specially-made bonding squares. One square can be worn against the parent’s skin and one can be left with the baby in the incubator. Each day, the squares can be switched so that the baby has the parent’s scent and the parent can have the baby’s scent.

The care packages are from the national nonprofit TODAY is a Good Day and are intended to help families know they are not alone when their child is in the NICU. Organizers said the fabric of the bonding squares help NICU families bond with their babies through smell.

The volunteers assembled 850 care packages at the United Healthcare offices in Wauwatosa and then delivered them to Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin