BLUE EARTH — Last year, the Fairmont Women of Today set out to raise enough funds to help grieving families following the death of an infant. What came next was overwhelming community support, doubling the amount of giving.

Fairmont Women of Today is a local organization that promotes fellowship, leadership, personal wellness and service. They do this through doing volunteer work, raising money for different charities and holding community events.

“We have all bettered ourselves because of this group,” said Sue Bay, Fairmont Women of Today president. “We help each other grow and develop, and we can do great things for our community.”

Kylie Saari, a member of the group, said she came up with the idea to raise money for a CuddleCot to be donated to the Mayo Clinic Health System-Fairmont through her work as a birth/bereavement doula. She provides physical, emotional and informational support to families before, during and after birth, as well as supporting families experiencing pregnancy loss.

The CuddleCot is a device that cools down the bassinet so the deceased infant can be kept in the delivery room longer, allowing the grieving parents to spend time with it, take photos and have relatives visit before it has to be taken away.

“The parents aren’t always expecting it, and even if they are they want to spend some time with the baby,” Saari said.

She had thought about bringing the CuddleCot to the community even before she joined Fairmont Women of Today.

“But I’d never even considered that I could help bring it here, that I could be part of that,” Saari said.

To raise money, Fairmont Women of Today held a Royal Princess Party last May, in which they hired actresses dressed up as fairytale princesses for an afternoon of crafts, storytime and other activities.

While the original plan was to raise the funds within two or three years, they had enough money after just three months. This was mainly due to the success of the Royal Princess Party, which raised about $3,500.

“That was a huge success; we got most of the fundraising done,” Saari said. “We thought this would take forever and it took like one event.”

Other fundraising efforts included donations from area businesses and waiting tables at Pizza Ranch. Altogether, Fairmont Women of Today raised $5,500, enough to purchase two CuddleCots.

“The community really supported this project,” Saari said.

With funds to purchase a second CuddleCot, Fairmont Women of Today decided to donate it to United Hospital District in Blue Earth. This is the first CuddleCot the hospital owns, said Ronda Dahl of UHD.

“It’s very nice that they gave us this addition to our nursery and our OB department,” she said.

On the CuddleCot box given to UHD is a quote that reads, “There is no footprint too small that it doesn’t leave an imprint on this world.”

Fairmont Women of Today member Erin Howk Bennett said that even though miscarriages, stillborns and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) aren’t usually talked about, it happens, and support for families that go through it is more needed than one thinks.

“We met a lot of people through this campaign who never shared it with people outside their immediate family who came to us and explained to us that it had affected their lives,” Howk Bennett said. “And I think that’s kind of why it was such an amazing success.”