About the Nonprofit
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The mission of the Claire Bear Foundation is to enhance infant safety and reducing infant mortality through education and outreach regarding safe sleep practices; offer comprehensive family support; and address disparities in race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic factors to reduce the incidence of Sudden Unexplained Infant Death through direct services such as crib distribution.
Our foundation, created in memory of Claire Raphael, is dedicated to infant safety and family support. Our sweet Claire's very preventable death happened from unsafe sleep at her child care. Rather than allow anger to take over, we have used it to keep her memory alive by doing good. The foundation provides free cribs, sleep sacks, and pacifiers to any family in the United States who has financial need. We have funded an infant/child trauma simulation room at Mary Bridge Children's hospital in Tacoma, the hospital that tried to save her. We also provide financial support for families who have lost a child, so they can afford a funeral, medical expenses, or other unexpected financial obligations that come up. Mary Bridge Children's Hospital has broken ground on a new, stand-alone hospital, and with that a new simulation training room for medical personnel. We are looking to increase funds to the Claire Raphael Training Room for an expanded room for the most up-to-date training and simulations focused on infants and children. In addition to the training room, the Claire Bear Foundation will continue to support Bridges Center for Grieving Children, just as Bridges supported our family after losing Claire. In an effort to help prevent financial barriers from becoming obstacles for infant safety, we will continue to be a resource for Mary Bridge's Center for Childhood Safety and provide families a portable crib and sleep-related items at no cost.
Nothing is more important than our commitment to infant safety. As part of this commitment, the Claire Bear Foundation sits on committees and boards with infant safety at the forefront of our minds.