Maternity Care Coalition (MCC) held a ribbon cutting Monday at their office in Bristol to launch their new Community Care Kiosk.
The kiosk will provide free essentials like diapers, formula, pregnancy tests, and menstrual products — helping expand access to critical resources and reduce barriers to care.
“Minimum wage in Pennsylvania is still $7.25 an hour,” said Sara Jann Heinze, senior director of policy and advocacy at MCC. “There are zero weeks of guaranteed paid family and medical leave, childcare costs over $12,000 a year per kid. It is absolutely no surprise that families are in need right now. So that’s the work that we get to do together – to provide basic needs right now.”
State Representative Tina M. Davis was there to lend her support. When she was a younger mother, she almost lost her home.
“I’ve rebounded and I feel like I can talk to people on their level all the time,” said Davis to the community present. “Right now, it’s very difficult for everybody. I’m more concerned of the mental issues that are coming from all this.”
READ: State Senator Steve Santarsiero: Raising Pennsylvania’s $7.25 Minimum Wage Is About Economic Justice and Improving Economic Competitiveness
Davis said they witness a lot of mental health challenges in their office, but when they have great groups like MCC, they can refer people to get assistance.
“They just have to know about it,” said Davis. “I hear it all the time. ‘Oh, I didn’t know you did that.’”
Davis looks back to when she was young, noting that she didn’t go to the state rep’s office for help. She commended MCC for the work they are doing and said the group should be very proud. She said she loves the community.
“Lonnese Boddison [Senior Director of Programs at MCC] and her team worked so hard to be able to provide this resource to the communities that we serve,” said Heinze. “It’s just another way to be able to reach community members; we currently didn’t have a way to do it. So being able to have these kiosks accessible all the time whenever people are in need is really cool and innovative.”
The kiosk at the MCC office is the only one in Bucks County, but Heinze said they’re putting kiosks in most of the counties that they serve in.
For over 40 years, MCC has been serving Southeastern Pennsylvania. As they broaden their impact, they have expanded into other parts of the state, as well as throughout Delaware.
Boddison said they distributed about 16,000 products last year and they do an average of 70 outreach events a month throughout their service areas.
“We are here regularly (in the county) about 10 times a month,” said Boddison. “We do outreach at the WIC office around the corner from here. We partner with a food pantry up here and we also do pop-up events at several places – one being the Bucks County Community College and the other is a park area where we’ll do pop-ups if the weather is nice.”
Boddison said they had a practice of providing one set of products per month to a person or family but given the demand they’ve had and their ability to secure funding from generous donors, they’ve been able to increase that to be able to give people as much as needed.
“Sometimes we’ll see people once a week, sometimes biweekly. We are very appreciative to our donors for us to be able to do that,” said Boddison. “It’s a real need. We just fully want to put money back in people’s pockets, especially with the rising food costs and utility costs and taxes.”
Boddison said they are always looking for donors and donations. MCC has several grants that allow them to distribute basic needs through state funders, foundations and private donors.
“But we are spending a lot of money on basic need items every quarter and we run through them,” she said, noting that they have currently run out of wipes. “We order pallets and pallets and pallets of things that get distributed to our supply center in North Philadelphia and then we have staff that bring them out to all our sites in various counties. But it’s a lot.”
It is absolutely no surprise that families are in need right now. So that’s the work that we get to do together – to provide basic needs right now.” – MCC Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy Sara Jann Heinze
Their biggest supporters?
“The Women’s Services grant is a donor of ours,” said Boddison. “We receive some OCDL (Office of Child Development and Early Learning) funding to do some of our home visiting programs and we’re able to use some of our budget for clients or program supplies to get families what they need. We have our kiosk funded by AstraZeneca and the Women’s Services grant.”
Boddison said those three organizations are primarily where they get most of their funds to distribute basic need supplies. “We invited some funders that have an interest in supporting essential needs and two of them are out here today,” she said.
Heinze added that her job is to help compel the government to make some changes.
“My job is to find money,” she said. “We all have good jobs, but families are really bumping up all kinds of challenges. These are the ways that we address those challenges.”
The location of the Community Care Kiosk is 1200 Veteran’s Highway, Suite A-8, Bristol, PA 19007. For more information visit https://maternitycarecoalition.org/.
**Correction: An earlier version of this article misreported that Rep. Davis lost her home when she was younger. She had almost lost her home.**
