You might be wondering why we offer membership and why you might want to spend the $30 to join Babywearing International of New Haven.  It is true that our general meetings are ALWAYS free and open to the public and our lending library is available for use at meetings.  Our primary mission is babywearing education – and we believe that education should be free!  However, there are some additional benefits to membership.  By becoming a member of BWI New Haven you

1. Gain lending library privileges!  Dues paying members in good standing may check out one carrier per month to take home and use.  Over the course of an annual membership, you’ll get to try at least 12 different carriers!  This is a great way to “try before you buy”, get a carrier for a special occasion/purpose, or explore other carrier options as your child grows and your needs change.
2. Support the growth of our lending library and chapter!  $20 of every $30 membership stays with our local organization.  The majority of this money will be used to fund additional carriers for our library.  The remaining portion is used to fund outreach efforts (purchasing business cards, etc.).
3. Support our parent organization!  $10 of every $30 membership is remitted to Babywearing International.  Our parent organization supports us (and babywearing in general) in many ways:  training and providing continuing education for our educators, providing liability insurance for our educators (and soon insurance for our library), maintaining the fabulous resource of TheBabywearer.com (which will soon house a comprehensive member management system in addition to the wonderful forums already available), and spearheading outreach efforts.
4. Support babywearing education and advocacy in our community!  Member support helps our group grow and bring babywearing education to all interested members of our community.  We welcome your outreach ideas and would love to come talk to groups you may be a part of.  We are in the early stages of partnering with Yale-New Haven hospitals to bring babywearing programs to new and expecting parents; we look forward to finding other such community partnerships as we grow.

We hope you will consider joining BWI New Haven.  For more information, email us, visit our information page, or chat with one of our leaders at any meet up. Hope to see you soon!!