Car Seat Challenge

Those of you who know me in real life are no doubt aware that I have been a nationally certified Child Passenger Safety Technician for a little over six years now. What that means is that I've attended a certification class and lots of trainings so that I can (and will!) tell you more than you ever wanted to know about car seats and child passenger safety. I can also tell you that despite massive advances in child passenger protection, car crashes remain the number one cause of death of children between 1 and 14 years of age, in part because some families lack the resources to provide the correct seats to keep their children safe.

In the past six years I've worked closely with our local Safe Kids coalition and the Public Health Department to help with checking car seats for proper installation and use, and distributing free or low-cost seats to those families in need. For several years the Health Department has distributed seats to families that for whatever reason lack the means to purchase a seat on their own. These seats were purchased with grant funding from the national Safe Kids organization. Unfortunately Safe Kids, being primarily funded by contributions from General Motors, has fallen on hard times and the grant funding is no longer available for the Health Department's distribution program. The loss of grant money means that Public Health will not be able to provide car seats to families that have need.

As a temporary measure to “bridge the gap” until more permanent funding can be secured, our church's Mission Leadership Team is issuing a challenge to all of our local religious and service organizations to provide at least 1 car seat per month over the course of 6 months, for a proposed total cost of $360 for each congregation/organization.

I am proud to say that as of today, a little more than a week after the original letters were sent to the other churches and service organizations, we have commitments for a total of $1020 in car seat funding. In addition, our congregation has already given $230, plus one additional car seat was purchased and brought to the church (and has been delivered to the health department for distribution).

The Mission Leadership Team will be tracking the response and I'll update with new totals as we receive updated responses from the other congregations and organizations on the list.