March Membership Drive

Our March Membership Drive is here!! We are so excited to see how much our group has grown in the past year and to help us continue to share the babywearing love and support, we are doing a membership drive with some great prizes!

A Bit About BWIP:

We are Babywearing International of Phoenix (BWIP), a chapter of the international group, Babywearing International. You can learn about the international group, along with the mission statements, guiding principles, and more here. You can learn more about BWIP on our website, Facebook Page, or Group. Our leaders, whom you can read more about here, are all volunteers with a love and passion for babywearing. They donate their time, energy, and knowledge to hold the various meetings and play dates in Phoenix and the surrounding cities. These meetings are always held in public locations, free to any who may wish to attend. We also have a 'library' of carriers available at our meetings to try on and get help with; these are also available for our members to borrow (more info about this benefit below).

What is Membership?

Membership with BWIP is $30 per year, tax deductible. Two-thirds of that ($20) stays with the local chapter you sign up through to help fund the purchase of new carriers, business cards for members to hand out, and more. The other third is remitted to the national group to help fund organization-wide literature, on-going education, and outreach, among many other things. All of the people working for this organization, from the top chairwoman to the smallest chapter leader, all are volunteers!

Purchasing a membership with BWIP, along with helping to support babywearing at the local level and beyond, also has great benefit to caregivers. Membership allows you to borrow a carrier from our lending library at any meeting for up to a month (30 days or so) at a time. Our library is present at all of our meetings, but can vary depending on what is checked out at any given time. Any carrier checked out is due at the next month's meeting in that area, or any other meeting prior to that. You are then able to check out a different carrier, and so on and so forth. You could potentially try out 12 or so different carriers for a month at a time! What a great way to 'try before you buy' and find out what you love! All that for only $2.50 a month, which all goes to help share the babywearing love in your community and beyond. We welcome all who would wish to join BWIP, whether to take advantage of these benefits or just to support babywearing advocacy and outreach.

We have over 70 different carriers and accessories currently in our library. Check out our Facebook group or stop by a meeting to see more. Pictured below are a few of our recent additions!

Why Join BWIP?

This is a great time to help our chapter build funds for purchasing new carriers for our library and for other outreach materials for our community. This year, the International Babywearing Conference will be held right here in our backyard at Tempe Mission Palms July 17-20. Membership with BWIP earns you a discount on conference registration! Take advantage of such an awesome collection of babywearing vendors, educators, and supporters by joining us at the conference and supporting BWIP with your membership.

This applies to any current membership renewals or gift membership purchases. Even if you are not yet up for renewal, renewing now will directly benefit our group and will be added on to your current membership (i.e. if your membership is up in April 2014, renewing now in March will extend it until April 2015!). What are you waiting for? Join today by emailing us or signing up at any meeting this month!

Need more incentive to join?

During this month's membership drive, we will be raffling off 2 gently used carriers from our library, open only to our members. Every new membership or renewal will earn 5 entries into our drawing. If you are a current member in good standing you can earn 1 entry for each new member you refer who joins (only one referral per new membership).

There are two carriers in this drawing - a Boba carrier in Pinstripe and a Boba Wrap in Brown. The Pinstripe is brand new in box and the Wrap is in new condition with info book but has no packaging. Winners will be randomly selected after the drive ends and will be notified by email. Winners will have 48 hrs to respond, or an alternate winner will be selected. Shipping is available for an additional fee if needed.

Donations:

We love donations to our library, both financial or of good condition carriers. We will accept donations at any time; and any straight donations (monetary or of carriers) may have a tax receipt issued. 

We are so excited for these great events and know that BWIP and our members are sure to greatly benefit from them. We love sharing the babywearing love and appreciate your support of babywearing too!

**Thanks to BWI of Chicagoland for the inspiration!