Imagine your wife delivered your long-awaited first baby who was born prematurely and facing a long stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Your wife is still in the hospital due to severe birth complications and in another unit unable to see her baby girl. Your baby is so tiny and frail, in critical condition and hooked up to many machines to keep her alive; you are afraid to leave her side.
What should be an exciting time has turned into a nightmare.
And the last thing on your mind is feeding yourself.
That is when we heard about John from the nursing staff at the South Health Campus NICU.
John had been eating packages of crackers as his only food source so he wouldn’t have to leave his daughter’s side as she fought for her life.
We knew then that we had to find a way to help families like John’s, and in 2016 we launched our NICU Family Meals Program. 

At our core, Made by Momma is a food bank, but a food bank with a difference! We provide nutritious, delicious, healthy, prepared freezer meals to families facing situations of crisis and adversity.
We strongly believe that in times of crisis, a healthy nourishing meal can make a world of difference! Having a premature or critically ill baby is frightening and exhausting! The stress can be overwhelming and it takes a toll on every parent. Our NICU Family Meals Program alleviates some of this stress. 

When parents have premature or critically ill babies or small children in the Neonatal or Pediatric Intensive Care Unit; they spend much of their time in the hospital caring for their children, but once discharged, these new mothers are not fed or cared for themselves.   

Made by Momma has our own freezers that are stocked full of individually packaged healthy meals and wholesome snacks in four local NICU and PEDS units. This food is available at no cost for all family members with babies admitted to the hospital. Having healthy meals available means these families can take care of themselves, making them better able to care for their vulnerable children. 

Since 2016 this program has grown from one freezer on one unit, to four freezers on four units in three hospitals - with a waitlist for more.

Made by Momma currently has freezers on the NICU at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, the NICU at South Health Campus, as well as the NICU and PEDS units at the Peter Lougheed Centre. 

The demand for this program is high and growing every year. In order to keep up with the demand for this program, we need to purchase an additional industrial freezer for our commercial kitchen. This will allow us to prepare more meals and store them while we arrange the delivery to the units. The cost for an additional industrial freezer is $7,920.50. 

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For many parents with a baby or child in the hospital, this program represents more than just a meal.

One dad wrote to us:

“ I’d like to take a moment to express the gratitude my wife and I have for the ‘Made by Momma’ meal program.   Our son was born at 34 weeks and 3 days.  He spent 17 days in the NICU before we could bring him home.  Over those 17 days, my wife and I spent as much time as possible by his side.  Access to the Made by Momma meals and food items helped to make our time at the NICU a little more bearable.  I’d like to highlight three main areas that the Made by Momma meal program is a blessing to families like ours. 

Cost Savings 

Bringing a baby into the world can be a stressful time financially for young families.  In addition to the regular expenses of having a baby, the additional costs of having a baby in the hospital (parking, transportation to and from the hospital, meals while in the hospital) can be daunting.  Providing a free meal solution to new moms and families helps to relieve some of this financial pressure.   

Nutritious and Delicious 

During our son’s time in the hospital, in addition to Made by Momma meals, we ate many different types of fast food and makeshift packed lunches.  Doing so, we weren’t always eating as nutritiously as possible.   With the Made by Momma meals, we knew we were able to get something not only delicious, but also very nutritious.  This was especially important for my wife, who was working to establish positive breast-feeding results for our newborn. 

The value of time 

The absolutely most valuable benefit of the Made by Momma program was that it allowed us to spend more time where we belonged – with our son.   The Made by Momma meals allowed us to avoid trips down to the cafeteria, trips away from the hospital to grab fast food, or simply allowed us to stay longer at the hospital since we weren’t required to grocery shop or pack meals at home to bring to the hospital. 

My wife and I are so grateful for the Made by Momma program .” 

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With your support, we can purchase a much-needed additional industrial freezer allowing us to continue to feed hundreds of local / area families each month through the NICU Family Meals Program .

Thank you for supporting families facing situations of crisis and adversity.  

Made by Momma is a grassroots for-impact organization and registered Canadian charity located in Calgary. We help families facing situations of adversity and crisis by providing healthy homemade meals, wholesome baked goods, baby essentials, children’s items, supportive in-home visitors and other services to allow  mothers  the time they need to rest, recover and focus on their families and their health.