Staying home all day, every day, with the kids is new for many fathers during the COVID-19 crisis. To help them navigate the new realities of fatherhood in a pandemic, City Dads Group is working with longtime partner Dove Men+Care to create a series of “how to” videos for the grooming products company’s new “Dads Care” campaign.

The short videos started appearing the week of April 26 at DM+C’s YouTube channel. Created by fathers for fathers, the Dads Care videos cover topics relevant to the times under general categories such as hygiene, helping kids and helping communities. Initial video titles include “How to Wash Your Hands,” “How to Give a Kid a Haircut (and Not Mess It Up),” and “How to Help Kids Overcome Fear.”

“To all the dads out there teaching, innovating, holding down the home front and frontlines, we want to thank you for showing us what it means to Dad On. We are proud to support families … with at-home parenting resources,” the men’s grooming products company announced April 30 on its Facebook page.

The company had been planning a video campaign about fathers teaching fathers before much of the United States went under varying degrees of lockdown this spring over the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus. The theme — many modern dads feel overwhelmed these days, but other dads can help better equip them by sharing their expertise and knowledge — really only needed a little tweaking in light of the pandemic leaving many homebound for long stretches of time.

Several City Dads Group fathers are creating content for the series in which Dove Men+Care expects to introduce new #DadsCare how-to videos weekly through July. Some of these include:

• Aaron Sheldon of our Columbus Dads Group explains how to help kids with autism cope with a new routine.
• Andrew Bennett of the Boston/Providence Dads Group talks about keeping kids physically active.
• James Lopez of the NYC Dads Group reviews how to teach preschoolers to count.
• Marlon Gutierrez of our Orlando Dads Group discusses how to keep your children occupied while working from home.

Pediatric cancer is in the sights of City Dads Group this June as we team with the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) to raise money to help find a cure.

City Dads Group chapters in a dozen cities from coast-to-coast will set up stands between June 2 and 10 to sell lemonade and take donations to go to the national nonprofit’s work funding research to find better treatments and cures for childhood cancer.

Details, including times and locations for each group’s event this year, will be made available on the City Dads Group’s ALSF fundraising page or on the group’s Meetup page (see list below).

City Dads Group previously raised funds with Alex’s Lemonade Stand in 2016, but this year’s model should be even sweeter thanks to our ongoing partnership with Plum Organics. The nation’s leading organic baby food brand is helping our chapters out with supplies for their stands, and will provide snacks and samples for patrons.

• Boston – June 8
• Charlotte – June 4
• Chicago – June 9
• Dallas – June 9
• Fresno, Calif. – June 7
• Kansas City – June 2
• Los Angeles- June 10
• Madison, Wisc. – June 8
• New York City – June 5
• Portland, Ore. – June 9
• San Francisco – June 2
• Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul), Minn – June 2

City Dads Group and Plum Organics® will again work together to help nourish children and assist families in need on Giving Tuesday, an international day of helping others that follows Thanksgiving.

On Nov. 28, City Dads in 12 U.S. metropolitan areas will help pack and distribute food donated by Plum Organics, the nation’s leading organic baby food brand. Plum Organics last year for Giving Tuesday donated more than 24,000 meals to charitable organizations chosen by our chapters in Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco and the Minneapolis/St. Paul.

** Watch video of our 2016 Giving Tuesday work **

“We are proud to expand our Giving Tuesday partnership with Plum Organics to support nonprofits that support families in need across the United States,” said Matt Schneider, co-founder of City Dads Group. “Our dads are very proud to be able to provide time and much needed food to our communities.”

Where we are helping on Giving Tuesday

Our members will help pack, stock and distribute the Plum Organics donation and perform other volunteer work to the following organizations:

• Boston/Providence Dads Group have chosen to assist the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, which will distribute the food through its 160 agency partners that reach 57,000 individuals monthly.
• The Charlotte Dads Group plans to work with Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina, which distributed more than 50 million pounds of food and household items throughout its 19 county service region during its most recent fiscal year.
• Chicago Dads Group will assist clients of Palatine Township Food Pantry, an organization that serves an average of 345 families each month.
• Dallas Dads Group has chosen to work with Hope Supply Co. which assists 1,100 homeless children in North Texas every day.
• The Fresno Dads Group will work with Community Food Bank, which serves more than 280,000 people each month through a variety of programs.
• Kansas City Dads Group has chosen to help Harvesters Community Food Network, a regional food bank serving northwestern Missouri and northeastern Kansas that assists more than 620 not-for-profit agencies.
• The Los Angeles and NYC Dads Groups will again help GOOD+ Foundation, a nonprofit group that works with a network of more than 100 community-based organizations across the country to distribute essentials to families in need.
• Madison Dads Group in Wisconsin will assist the Goodman Community Center, which helps income-limited families through a food pantry, before- and after-school programs and other services.
• Our Portland Dads Group will work with the Oregon Food Bank, a central hub for supplying food pantries across the entire Pacific Northwest state.
• San Francisco Dads Group has selected the SF-Marin Food Bank to be its partner. The nonprofit provides more than 100,000 meals a day through 250 area food pantries.
• Twin Cities Dads Group in Minnesota will volunteer with Second Harvest Heartland, one of the nation’s largest food banks.

“At Plum, our mission is to nourish little ones with the very best food from the very first bite. Back in 2013, we founded The Full Effect® program to extend our mission to little ones in need. In America, 1 in 5 children is food insecure. That’s approximately 13 million kids,” Mandy Geisler, senior marketing manager at Plum Organics, said in a written statement. “The global giving movement Giving Tuesday is a great platform to raise awareness about this issue. By partnering with City Dads Group again this year, we’re able to bring organic baby food donations to organizations in twelve of their locations nationwide.”

City Dads Group members and others who are not able to participate in any of these events in person can follow our work on Twitter and Instagram. By using hashtags #PlumParents and #GivingTuesday, you can see pictures of our dads across the country supporting families in need.

Giving Tuesday is a global day of outreach dedicated to helping others. It’s meant to kick-off the holiday season and inspire people to collaborate in improving their local communities. Since its 2012 inception, tens of thousands of organizations worldwide annually participate in the day.

This will be the fourth consecutive year City Dads outposts around the country have participated in Giving Tuesday activities, and the second that Plum Organics has served as our national sponsor.

DISCLOSURE: Plum Organics is partnering with City Dads Group for the Giving Tuesday work mentioned above through a donation of goods and financial compensation.

DISCLOSURE: This post is sponsored by Huggies®.

Several members of our Boston Dads Group recently joined forces with with Huggies and its No Baby Unhugged program to help create care packages of children’s winter clothing, diapers and wipes to aid families struggling to meet the basic needs of their children.

Keeping a young child clean, dry and healthy — especially in the cold of a New England winter — is a challenge for any parent. A recent Diaper Need and Its Impact on U.S. Families study by the National Diaper Bank Network and its founding sponsor, Huggies, found that one in three U.S. families (36%) are in diaper need or struggle to provide enough diapers and wipes – often because they had to face the difficult choice between buying food or necessary baby care products. The study also revealed that 73 percent of moms and dads feel they are not being good parents when their children are left too long in a dirty diaper.

That’s why our Boston Dads spent a morning at Cradles to Crayons’ Giving Factory creating dozens of “KidPacks” for children who are living in homeless or low-income situations. Winter KidPacks included weather appropriate clothing for a week so a child can travel to school, play outside with friends, and go to medical appointments, even in the coldest weather. The care packages for the youngest kids included Huggies diapers and wipes that were either donated by individuals or by Huggies distributing through organizations like the National Diaper Bank Network.

Huggies became a founding sponsor of the nonprofit National Diaper Bank Network in 2011 to help combat diaper need in the United States. In six years, it has grown from 40 to more than 300 diaper banks across the country. Huggies has donated more than 200 million diapers and wipes to its cause during that time through its No Baby Unhugged program.

“At Cradles to Crayons, nearly half of the orders we fulfill are for a child 3 years old and younger, which means that the demand we see for diapers is overwhelming,” said Lynn Margherio, Cradles to Crayons’ founder and CEO. “Despite skipping meals or taking on additional jobs to be able to afford diapers, our families are still stretching the diapers they have as far as they will go — which means reusing soiled diapers, or leaving babies in them for too long. Diapers are an absolutely critical component of the essentials we provide. We see caregivers missing crucial hours at work because day care centers won’t take a child without the required amount of diapers for the day. Without diapers, a baby’s health can be compromised, and our mission is to distribute the basics so all children can grow up happy and healthy.”

All our Boston Dads Group volunteers at the Giving Factory that day were at-home fathers with young children, so the issue felt close to home as we packed clothing for older toddlers. We took care to only include high-quality items as we selected jackets, sweaters, shirts, pants, pajamas and other essentials every kid needs. We learned from our orientation that “Quality = Dignity” is a belief that drives the nonprofit’s mission.

“It was great to have an opportunity to volunteer,” said Boston Dads Group member Alex Santiago. “I’m glad we were able to help dozens of children get the clothes and goods they needed.”

Help fill the National Diaper Bank

You can join City Dads Group and Huggies in the fight to combat #DiaperNeed and help children get the things they need to just be kids:

• Support the National Diaper Bank Network by making a monetary contribution at org, visiting a local diaper bank or even hosting a diaper drive.
• Visit Huggies.com to learn more about diaper need, and donate your Huggies Rewards points to help combat diaper need.
• Visit the Cradles to Crayons’ Giving Factory website to learn how you and your family can get involved to help kids in need in the Greater Boston area. The nonprofit also has centers in Chicago and Philadelphia.

About our sponsor

Huggies believes deeply in the Power of Hugs, which is why every diaper and wipe is inspired by a parent’s embrace. The Huggies No Baby Unhugged program helps ensure all babies get the hugs they need to thrive by supporting hugging programs in hospitals and donating diapers across the country. Learn how you can help at Huggies.com. #HuggiesCouncil #ad

Two great New England state capitals now have another thing in common — a City Dads Group.

The Boston Dads Group, one of the first created when City Dads Group went national in 2014, in recent months has widened its reach about 50 miles south to neighboring Rhode Island where fathers living in and around Providence can benefit from its camaraderie and resources.

The expansion started when Michael Malkoff, who had been an active member of our Chicago Dads Group, relocated with his family to Providence earlier this year.

“When my wife, Shawna, and I decided to move to Rhode Island for family and career reasons, I knew that I would need the support and fellowship of a dads group,” Malkoff said. “Only problem was, Providence didn’t have one. I had read a 4-year-old article in the Providence Journal about at-home dads in Providence. Most dads interviewed mentioned that they were hoping there would be a local dads group, but there wasn’t. So, I knew there was a need.”

That’s when he made contact with our Boston fathers.

“It is hard to get a group going on your own and Boston already had lots of dads in southern Massachusetts  and some in Rhode Island that we weren’t programming for,” said Robbie Samuels, an organizer for our Boston fathers. “So when Michael moved to Rhode Island and said he wanted to start hosting events, we welcomed him posting his events on our Boston Dads Group site,”

Malkoff, an at-home dad to a 2-year-old daughter and 3-month-old son, had previously worked in education for 13 years: half as a classroom teacher, half as a new teacher coach/trainer and training event organizer.

The addition of Providence, some increased media coverage and robust programming has helped the chapter to grow from 525 members in March to 610 today.

“It’s been fantastic having him on our organizing team and being able to say that we have events from north of Boston to Providence,” Samuels said. “We’re even planning a cross-city family picnic in September that will be centrally located between Boston and Providence.”

You can find the Providence Dads Group on these social media channels (as part of our Boston group):

• Meetup (go here to join the group)
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram

City Dads Group is a dynamic and diverse community of fathers redefining, by example, what it means to be a dad in the 21st century. Our national support network has more than 8,100 members based in and around major metropolitan U.S. cities. These include Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and New York City.

Founded in November 2008 in New York City as a way a handful of fathers could arrange playdates and outings with their children. The organization went national in 2014.

We can’t think of a better way to celebrate April as National Poetry Month than by encouraging you to read the work of one of our own City Dads Group members.

Ben Berman, a member of our Boston Dads Group, recently had published  his second collection of verse. Figuring in the Figure (Able Muse Press) covers many topics in its 88 pages but the final section of the book covers fatherhood, including birthing and baby care classes, the arrival of his child, and those first precious months of life. His work, including the non-parenting poems, is filled with wry humor and familiar scenes like this one that opens the piece “Nothing Archaic about It”:

“She walks and cries out with an onslaught
of needs, beckons us like the torso
of Apollo: You must change your daughter.”

Figuring in the Figure has garnered great reviews. “Both expansive and structured, the interwoven stanzas allow him to form and reform probing questions of identity without ever forsaking a deep musicality,” raved Beth Ann Fennelly, the poet laureate of Mississippi. “His observations are enriched with various kinds of humor … This book is wise and wonderful.”

Berman, a high school teacher and poetry editor for Solstice Literary Magazine, also writes a monthly “Writing While Parenting” online column about how the two jobs overlap and intersect.

Berman lives in the Boston area with his wife and daughters. His poetry collection, Strange Borderlands, won the 2014 Peace Corps Award for Best Book of Poetry and was a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Awards.

You can purchase Figuring the Figure here.