In our previous blog post Exciting News About the Scholarship Fund  we promised to have a public accounting for the funds we received so here is our Scholarship Fund Accounting for 2019:

Total Donations to the Scholarship Fund: $20,180.75

$15,268 of that came from donations to the scholarship from former clients and friends.
$2,560 came from doulas who benefit from the SF donating their tips.
$2,352.75 came from the company donating back $25 of what would be profit from every labor support contract and $1 of every postpartum hour back to the scholarship fund.

With that money we provided:

7 full scholarships and 4 partial scholarship labor support packages.
98 hours on full scholarship, and 74.75 hours at 50% scholarship of postpartum support.
4 childbirth education courses
5 belly binds and instructional binding sessions
3 placenta encapsulations were provided at no cost to the families, 1 at 50% scholarship
12 hours of bereavement support was covered by the SF
And 2 families got to use our birth pool free of charge

We also used some funds to cover hours of advanced trainings in rebozo, placenta encapsulation, and belly binding and providing support to our FSDC residents in service of our goal to support newer doulas who would have a hard time paying for the internships and mentorship programs that we found so helpful on our road to become full time birth workers.

We are truly blessed to be able to do this work and we would not be able to do it without all the support we’ve received from our clients, friends & families, and our birth worker community!

Right now we have $168.84 in the scholarship fund.  We feel really good about the fact that we have used all the money we were donated wisely.  We were advised to put some of the money into a savings account to help support our new business, but those funds were donated so that we could help people, so that is what we did. Looking forward, there are some people who have expressed interest in donating more, but nothing is for sure except that we have already signed the contract for another full scholarship for a labor support package (so technically there’s only -$781.16 in the fund right now but she’s not due for a few more months and we like to keep things positive, lol) and there are 2 homeless pregnant people who we have verbally agreed to support and another one who is living in a maternity home that we will definitely be providing services for.  Whether we get the donations or not we are not going to leave these people without support, it’s just that we might have to pay the doulas for their work out of our own pockets.  Some of you already know that with Rachel Emery’s departure to pursue a career in hospital midwifery that means there’s actually only one pocket left to cover these expenses.

If 2019 has taught us anything, it’s that birth magic is real.  Anyone who’s been around birth very long has witnessed it; birth magic means that when you surrender to the timeframe and the lessons and the awe inspiring power that allows mere humans to become portals to the stars or the universe or God or wherever it is our precious babies come from, that most of the time things work out better than we could have planned it.  So we’re leaving it up to birth magic to help us keep the scholarship fund going.  We have more people to help, more new doulas to bring full time into birth work, and more miracles to witness in 2020.  If you are able, please donate to the scholarship via our Venmo account @FullSpectrumDoulas.

Or come to our Client Reunion and Scholarship Fundraiser on Jan 25th from 12-4pm at 4730 NE 55th Ave.  Or if you aren’t available during those hours and don’t have the funds to donate right now, please like and share this post on your social media to help us get the word out.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

We want to see how much you've grown and show you how much we've grown too!

Yes, that's the same baby!  Rex Miller at 2 weeks and 10 months!

2019 was an amazing first year for Full Spectrum Doula Care, far exceeding our expectations. Not only did we get a whole new model for a doula business up and running, we also received such affirming support from generous donors that made our scholarship fund possible, and we were able to collaborate with our two wonderful residents, Ariana Micek and Felecia Graham, who have enriched our practice and become not just colleagues but good friends. 2019 has also stretched and tried us, in challenging but ultimately strengthening ways and we’re excited for what 2020 will bring.

To celebrate, we’ve decided to throw a Client Reunion! We want to see as many of your beautiful faces as possible, whether we had the pleasure of accompanying you on your reproductive health journey before or after April 2019, when we really got the ball rolling on FSDC. The reunion will be Jan 25th from 12-4pm at 4730 NE 55th Ave.   Ariana has generously allowed us to hold the event at her home. (thanks girl!) We will be raffling off a number of prizes and accepting donations in hopes that we can earn some more money for the scholarship fund, but whether or not you are able to donate monetarily we really want to see you there.

If you’d like to help us with this event, we would love to have any pictures you would be willing to share that illustrate the support you received from your doula or childbirth educator for a slideshow we’ll be putting together. If you’d be willing to bring a treat or beverage to share, please let us know by emailing [email protected] (if she was your doula you know she’s not the one you want making you cookies ).  If you have anything you’d like to contribute to our raffle we’d love to have more, though we’ve already got some pretty cool loot! And of course if you would be willing to donate to our scholarship fund we and the families we will only be able to serve through your support are extremely grateful.  You can venmo us at https://venmo.com/FullSpectrumDoulas, and add a note that it's for the fund.
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Thank you, thank you for helping us make this year incredible and allowing us to have the best job in the whole world. We know we’re blessed and we couldn’t do it without this amazing community. See you January 25th!

by Jenna Chidester