A Kodiak-based nonprofit that supports newborns and their families was recently surprised with a major donation from its financial institution.
Heather Preece is the founder of Kodiak KINDNESS, which provides free infant feeding classes, home visits and 24-hour phone support to Kodiak-area families with newborns. Preece is also a registered dietician and lactation consultant. In February, she got a call from the head of Credit Union 1.
“Then he said, ‘Are you sitting down?’ And he told me that Credit Union 1 had pledged to give KINDNESS $100,00 and then the Federal Home Loan Bank was going to multiply that by two and a half. And within a week or two weeks after that, we got a check in the mail for $350,000; and yeah I was speechless, which is a little unusual for me," Preece said.
That’s enough to cover nearly two years’ of KINDNESS’s operating costs. The other funder, Federal Home Loan Bank, is actually based in Des Moines, Iowa, but does business with Credit Union 1. The credit union also gave another $350,000 to Alaska’s Children’s Trust, according to a press release from Credit Union 1.
Mark Burgess, president and CEO of Credit Union, said in a press release that KINDNESS is doing, “deeply meaningful work by showing up for parents, children and communities in moments that matter most. We’re proud to help expand their reach.”
Preece said that KINDNESS has also offered to partner with Credit Union 1 to provide its services to all of the financial institution’s employees statewide with babies. But she said an official agreement for those services has not yet been worked out.
KINDNESS has expanded in the last few years, too, most recently hiring two new peer counselors in the Northwest Arctic, Nauyaq Baltazar of Kotzebue and Frances Williams of Ambler, last October. The organization is up to 10 part-time staff members plus several volunteers spread around Kodiak, Anchorage and the Northwest Arctic.
Preece says it’s amazing to see how much KINDNESS has grown since it split off from Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center as an independent nonprofit in 2021.
Since she started the organization in 2006, she says she has experienced several years of financial uncertainty.
“Like any organization there’s ebb and flow and fits and starts and some days where we feel like, ‘Can we even do this anymore?’ And, ‘Are we going to last even another year?’ Kind of thing,” Preece explained.
There was an extreme ebb when the Trump administration froze more than a billion dollars in federal funds going to Alaska last year. More recently, a federal court temporarily blocked Trump’s order, allowing the funds to flow again, as the underlying lawsuit plays out.
But with the recent one-time cash infusion, Jennifer Sheridan, the services coordinator with KINDNESS and an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant, said the nonprofit can grow even more.
“We’re not going to spend this money on frivolous things. It’s an investment in the future of families and their babies," she said.
Preece said Kodiak KINDNESS’s board of directors will discuss how to spend the $350,000 at its next board meeting.
