Pamapers UNICEF Giveaway Winners! is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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Sometimes when I nurse Asa, I sit on the couch and prop my laptop up on the arm of the couch. I’ll watch twitter updates or maybe a vlog or two. A few days ago I sat down to catch up on some information from Pampers about Salma Hayek’s visit to Sierra Leone. She was there to shine a little light (and press) on the ridiculous problem of infant deaths due to tetanus.

I’ve written a huge long post about tetanus before so I won’t go into it too much, other than to say—it is an UNNECESSARY disease. It could be eradicated in the world—each vaccine is just 5-7cents!

So, as I was sitting on the couch, nursing my sweet baby boy, I watched a Dateline special of  Salma Hayek and Caryl Stern (President of UNICEF USA) visit a clinic in Sierra Leone. A clinic that does NOT have the vaccines for tetanus. There was seven day old  baby that had tetanus–she was heavily sedated because of the pain. Minutes after they arrived, this baby girl died. The clinic did not have the anti-serum to save her. All they had was a vaccine for horses. So, they gave that to her. A HORSE VACCINE for a NEWBORN.

I’m shaking my head now. With tears in my eyes.

I read Caryl Stern’s blog post about her trip and you can feel her pain and her outrage. Here she is representing UNICEF and this clinic doesn’t even have a simple 7 cent vaccine to save this child! I had the opportunity to meet Ms. Stearn while I was in Cincinnati for the Pampers Mommy Blog Event and I’m telling you she genuinely aches for these children and mothers. She believes we can end these deaths with preventable causes.

Later in the video, Salma Hayek breastfeeds a sick baby. As I was sitting there watching children dying from tetanus and malnutrition, I was overwhelmed with emotion. Here I was nursing my own child while every 3 minutes a child dies from tetanus. It was just too much. Babies should not be dying. They should have mothers that can breastfeed and doctors that can heal.

I agree with Ms. Stearn and Salma Hayek—that we can eradicate tetanus. And by “we”, I mean WE. We get to be a part of actually saving lives! Lives that God knit together. Lives that will grow and develop and do something powerful for Him.

I hope you know that I’m not just posting about this because someone from Pampers emailed me. I am posting because I caught the passion that Caryl Stearn and the Pampers execs had about this campaign.  If you’ve been around here you’ll know I am most passionate about helping kids grow up to love God. But they will never grow up to do so if they don’t live past their first week of life.

So, as Pampers and UNICEF relaunch their One Pack=One Vaccine program, I’m asking you to get involved. There are several easy ways to do so—and some of them don’t even require you to throw down a chunk of change. (This is another reason I don’t feel weird about asking you to get involved.):

• Buy specially marked packs of Pampers diapers and wipes. Each pack you buy gives one vaccine to a child or mother.
• Order a UNICEF/Pampers baby bodysuit. Use your Gifts To Grow points to get a special onesie–for each one ordered, a vaccine will be donated. (Asa’s is on the way! I can’t wait for him to wear it!)
• Donate your Gifts To Grow points to buy vaccines. I just donated 84!!
• Donate to UNICEF directly. You can do so via the purple widget in my sidebar.
• Spread the word! Copy one of these widgets and get the word out.

So, saving lives? That works for me.

UNICEF Relaunches Pamper’s One Pack=One Vaccine is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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And why was I famous you ask? (You did ask, didn’t you?) Well, for one glorious day, I had a camera crew follow me around. We’re talking boom mics, cameras clicking away during private conversations and in your face as you walked down the hall. OK, it wasn’t just for me, but I was one of 15 that were being followed. And I have to admit, it feels kinda weird. I can’t imagine how Hollywood-types have paparazzi following and yelling at them 24/7. It would be pretty annoying.

Enough of Hollywood, let’s get back to ME.

When I went to Cincinnati for the Pampers Mommy Blogger Event (uh, yeah, it was like 3 weeks ago and I’m updating you on the final day…), P&G wanted to capture every moment of our adventure to share with the rest of their departments (not the word I was looking for, but “companies” isn’t right, either…). Apparently, everyone was so intrigued with bloggers they wanted to see how we did with Pampers before they decided to bring some more bloggers into Gilette or Tide or MaxFactor or whatever.

So, all the mama bloggers met in the hotel lobby at the ungodly hour of 8:30am. Then we jumped into our cushy chauffeured cars and went to Pampers Baby Care Headquarters. And this, my friends, is where the camera crews began.

We were greeted by Jane Wildman, GLOBAL VP (could I say that few more times?!), Bryan McCleary, External Relations for P&G and about 5 camera guys—still cameras and video. Yeah.

This began our hyper speed day, basically broken down into three parts. I’ll try to keep it brief. You’ll be rewarded at the end, I promise.

1. Tour of Pampers’ Discovery Center & Baby Care HQ

The Discovery Center is like a giant daycare. Only instead of dropping your kids off, you get paid to bring them in! You get free snacks and juice and then researchers watch you put on diapers. On your kids, I mean. We got to see the moms & babies, talk to the kids and watch research taking place.

Let’s say one of the researchers said, “Now, why exactly did you pull the tab like that?” And the mom says, “Well, it’s in the wrong position. It would be better here.” The researchers take that info upstairs to the secret pampers-place and they hand make a new diaper. This place was TOP SECRET and even our camera men weren’t allowed inside. But after donning hairnets and goggles, we were!

We watched four women hand make some prototype diapers based on the moms downstairs. I asked the supervisor, “How often do you do this?” He was kinda confused and said, “Well, like one shift. Eight hours a day.” I said, “I’m sorry. You make prototype diapers EIGHT HOURS a day? EVERY DAY?” I just can’t believe there is that much to improve upon in a diaper! But this is what Pampers does. They want to be the very best for your baby.

2. Q&A with P&G Panel

Next we were ushered into a swanky meeting hall complete with donuts and Pampers notepads. We were given the opportunity to talk to four different execs: Director of Product Development, Global Director of Product Quality, Senior Brand Manager and Marketing Director of Baby Care. So, basically: BIG WIGS.

Of course, we asked the questions about chlorine-free diapers, perfumes and landfill waste. And honestly, I was impressed with their answers. They were thoughtful, genuine and intelligent. (For example…NO ONE uses chlorine anymore. It’s an old-skool method. So, to advertise that you’re chlorine-free is like chocolate advertising, “we’re sweet!”.)

And this is when we started our engines. Each P&G exec that spoke made us genuinely excited about Pampers. (I feel like I can speak for everyone when I say this, too.)

We could feel their passion and couldn’t understand why they don’t display that passion to the public. If everyone got to hear the Marketing Director say, “I work at Pampers to make my wife’s job as a sahm easier.” they’d buy nothing but Pampers. If they showed us the Director of Product Development who has worked in Japan for five years investigating new fibers to put inside diapers, making them less wasteful, we’d be smitten with the company.

Pretty soon we were shouting things out like, “TWITTER THAT!” “YOU NEED A BLOG!” and “OMG, MAYBE WE CAN…” The bloggers in us started jumping out of our skins! Everyone had an idea and of course, it could all be solved with a blog!

It was kinda funny but the idea was true—people like blogs because they are real. And people would LOVE a super-mega-huge company to be that transparent, too. Authenticity sells.

3. UNICEF Presentation

I’ve already gushed on that. But I want to hit on it again because I don’t want you to forget about it…and the lives of babies & moms Pampers & UNICEF are saving.

The last three weeks, the mommy bloggers, the PR companies and Pampers have been a flurry of emails trying to get some more good stuff going on for YOU and UNICEF. We have our own awesome widget (courtesy of Mindy) and two of the mommy bloggers, Isabel @AlphaMom and Romi @TrueMomConfessions, have decided to match donations up to $500 on their blogs. Between those 2 blogs, that’s 40,000 vaccines. 40,000 babies & moms. 40,000 lives.

So, don’t pass up on this opportunity to literally ERADICATE tetanus in these countries.

***

I didn’t even mention the lunch we had with the Pampers Parenting Institute ladies. Or the statistics of how Pampers has reduced waste in the last three years. Or the Graeter’s ice cream. But I think I’m talked out. So, are you ready for your reward?

Well, Pampers has a great Gifts to Grow program, where you can earn points for every pack of diapers or wipes you buy. I’ve been collecting points ever since Lydia was born and have earned a cool Snapfish photo album book and am now deciding between free movie tickets or more Snapfish stuff.

So, Pampers is giving you a free point! ONE POINT. OK, so it doesn’t sound like very much. But you only get .5 if you buy a pack of wipes. So, this is equivalent to buying 2 packs of wipes! Just go to Pampers.com (and sign in, etc. etc.) then enter this code: OHAMANDAAWGTG08. If you’re not collecting these points, let someone else know about it! They might want your one point. I know I would!.

Thanks, Pampers for letting me be famous for one day!

Once Upon A Time, I Was Famous is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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I just updated my vaccine post with a WORKING video and a new donation widget created just for the Pampers Mommy Blogger Event. Would you click over to get invovled?

Thanks!

for my feed readers… is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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***updated with new donation widget and hopefully, the video is working!***

Uh-oh, the dreaded V-word. Vaccines. I know enough about them to be afraid, but not enough to ditch them.

What I do know is that vaccines have eradicated many diseases in our world.

One such disease is tetanus.

Tetanus? Is that even a thing anymore? Who’s ever heard of someone who has tetanus? Not me.

Well, until I went to Cincinnati. Until I met (!) the President & CEO of US Fund for UNICEF, Caryl Stern. Until I saw the video diary of Bryan McCleary, Director of External Relations of P&G and his trip with UNICEF to Angola, Africa. Until I read that 140,000 newborns and 30,000 mothers die each year from this preventable disease; a disease that has been preventable for the last FIFTY years!

Maternal & Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) is one of those diseases that’s just lurking everywhere. It’s transmitted through dirt and in the air and passed through open wounds. Open wounds like UMBILICAL CORDS. Many infants in third-world countries are delivered in mud huts with no clean water available. Umbilical cords are cut with whatever sharp instrument is around instead of a clean knife. Then packed with mud to stop the bleeding. And within 5-7 days, they die from tetanus.

It’s not a silent slow killer either. It’s marked with muscle rigidity, muscle spasms, inability to eat and seizures triggered by light and touch.

LIGHT and TOUCH.

Imagine your newborn baby, having muscle spasms and whenever you tried to comfort him he had a seizure. It’s horrifying.

Pampers has teamed up with UNICEF to end tetanus. Period. Since the year 2000 UNICEF has already eradicated it in 11 countries. It’s not out of the question because each vaccine only costs FIVE CENTS. One nickel. If you buy a pack of Pampers (with the below sticker on it), they’ll donate one vaccine.

You know, I don’t usually get involved with big charity organizations. My passion is not cancer or animals or storm victims. I’m glad someone is raising money and support for each one of these issues. But it’s not just me. I’m passionate about families and kids and Godly values. I’ve posted about Compassion because I want people to give their money to help raise kids to LIVE in this world but also to LOVE God.

But when I saw this video (I’m about to link to it…) of children dying when they are SIX days old, I was impelled to act. They just should not show a video of a newborn baby writhing in pain to a pregnant woman. It’s cruel and unusual.

Normally, big companies that give money makes me kind of irate. I mean, a movie star giving away 1 million dollars when they made 13 million on one of 3 movies they made last year, doesn’t impress me. (like uh…this.) It doesn’t motivate me to give when a company says they’ll give away one penny for every upc code I cut out, save and mail to them. It’s just false generosity. Why don’t they just donate the money and send out a press release?

Well, I wanted to ask the Global VP of Pampers Baby Care, Jane Wildman and Bryan McCleary this same question.

But before I could, they showed us the video (the link is coming…) of Mr. McCleary’s visit to Angola to see UNICEF’s progress with tetanus vaccines. They told us about the contest that P&G had so that 2 employees could travel with Mr. McCleary to Angola. They told us stories about their employees who were in “puddles” after watching this in-house video. We heard about these same employees who are saving their nickels so they can in turn save babies. And to top it off, they donated 1,000 vaccines in MY name. And 1,000 vaccines for each of the Mom bloggers that attended this event.

That’s only $50. But it’s 1,000 babies. 1,000 precious bundles of joy. 1,000 lives that God knit together.

I finally spoke up and said, “One of my biggest pet peeves is companies who have false generosity. But listening to what you guys are doing behind the scenes with UNICEF makes me motivated to give. I want to save babies with you.” (or something like that. I’m sure it wasn’t that expressive…)

So. Now, that you’ve heard my heart-gush. Here’s the video. Remember, this was an in-house video just for P&G employees. Not a marketing ploy. We had to beg them to give it to us. (Thank you, Amanda at PainePR!)

Did you watch it? If not, go back and at least watch the first 40 seconds. That’ll do it.

Now do you see why I’m writing this forever long post? Like I said, I had to act. So, here’s my idea.

In honor of the 1,000 vaccines that were donated in my name, I’m going to challenge you my dear readers and friends, to match that donation. I’d like us to collectively donate 1,000 vaccines to the Pampers/UNICEF tetanus fund. I’d like us to save 1,000 babies from tetanus. But to show you how serious I am (and to encourage you, too) I’m going to start it off by donating 1,000 vaccines personally. Will you partner with me?

If you’d like some more info, check out Pamper’s site and some of the other bloggers that were at the Pampers’ event. Kailiani tells a story about a mama in Mozambique and how her baby is alive thanks to these vaccines. Christine at Boston Mamas has an articulate (we haven’t seen that here in awhile…) retelling of our entire experience. And check out Stacy’s fantastic post, too.

By the way, if you’re here because of the word “vaccines” and want to argue their safety—please don’t. I am not an expert on Pampers, UNICEF or tetanus. Nor am I an employee of either organization. I’m just a mom who wants to help babies.

Vaccines & More Vaccines **updated** is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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So. Cincinnati. Pampers. Mom Bloggers.

It was just too much. It will take me posts and posts to properly assimilate all the information. And honestly, it was so interesting and informative and inspiring (how’s that for alliteration?) that I WANT to give you every detail. Hope you’re ready!

I want to tell you about P&G, the archives, the execs, my heavenly hotel room, the bloggers, the diapers, the babies, UNICEF, the bloggers and well, the bloggers. The thing I’m the most excited about is (well, besides the bloggers) is the UNICEF stuff that Pampers is doing. But I’m going to hold off for a couple of days until I get an idea I have a little more squared away…

Once I arrived in Cincinnati I was greeted by two fantastic girls from the PR companies, Andrea and Jen. They are adorable and sharp as a tack (or a whip, whichever you prefer). Also, Kailani, Heather, Romi and Stacy were there. (More on their impressive selves later…)

We were whisked away to the Westin (heavenly!) with just enough time to gush at a sweet P&G giftbasket, change into MORE maternity clothes and head off to P&G for a tour of the archives and a little bloggy mixing.

We arrived at P&G and were greeted by a big sign, a security desk and my very own Pampers nametag! Then we had refreshments in the archives room. (Yes, I was first in line.) The archivist (who’s name I don’t remember because I wasn’t smart enough to get my pad of paper out!) was amazing. He didn’t start out as an archivist…he was just so into the history of P&G and the companies they had accumulated, they ended up making this job for him.

I love listening to old stories and hearing about the history of American culture, so this was extremely interesting to me. We had a little bloggy introduction (where I was again blown away by all the smart mamas in the room), then finally got to meet all the Pampers folks!

We met Jane Wildman, GLOBAL VP for Pampers Baby Care. Global Vice President. Yeah.

And Bryan McCleary, Director of External Relations. Oh yeah, and he was on The Apprentice as a spokesperson for P&G and a guest judge. So, he’s famous.

I was immediately impressed with their warmth. I mean, I know they are just normal people, too. But they didn’t seem to be doing just another work-related thing. They seemed truly excited to meet us, talk to us and spend the next 24 hours listening to us.

We hit up Brio Tuscan Grill for dinner. It was fun to eat dinner with some more fun bloggers, the P&G execs and some UNICEF folks. Plus, I ate about 30 appetizers, a salad, a steak (yes, a steak!) and then a DELISH dessert. Oh my. I can’t believe I didn’t get a pic of that!

But here’s the thing. I don’t know what I was expecting when we got there…maybe to be wined and dined? Maybe just be a focus group? Or maybe it was just a straight PR move so they could say, “Well, look at what we did! We brought these mom bloggers in behind the scenes!” But even in this totally informal environment, I did not get that impression.

I felt like they were honored we were there. I think they were excited to share their “baby” with us. Their passion for moms and babies was catching! (more on this passion in another post…)

At our first little meet-up in the Archives, they showed us an in-house video of several employees from around the world talking about how they’ve seen lives changed because of Pampers products. They are literally zealous about diapers! They believe that they are changing and saving lives with their products.

I say all that to say, that with just a little meet and greet, a brief presentation and a normal dinner they’d already won me over. Everyone was personable, genuine, welcoming and in my opinion, honored to have us there!

On the way to the hotel, we caught up with the “other” table and then I went straight to bed. I couldn’t get online and didn’t think my little brain (or my pirate) could stay up long enough to figure it out.

More to come!

An Intro, a Recap & Just the Beginning… is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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