Throughout January, the East Greenbush Teachers Association collected donations for Brinley‘s Bags, a charity that provides care packages for families with babies in local Neonatal Intensive Care Units.

The teachers collected items such as snacks, notebooks, tissues, hand sanitizer, deodorant, lotion, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and gift cards to Starbucks and Dunkin and then packed more than 100 bags to be delivered to NICUs at Albany Medical Center, St. Peter’s Hospital and Bellevue Women’s Center.

Brinley’s Bags was founded by Green Meadow Kindergarten Teacher Erin Tarbox following her experience at the St. Peter’s Hospital NICU. Her daughter Brinley was born at 30 weeks, and weighing just under two pounds, needed to stay in the NICU for two months. It was a challenging time for Mrs. Tarbox and her husband Chris.

After going through that experience, Mrs. Tarbox created Brinley’s Bags so other parents going through a similar experience would have care packages to make their stays a little bit easier.