For the next baby. For the next family. For years to come.

Dear Friends of Maddie’s Place,

This month, Maddie’s Place celebrates four years of caring for some of our community’s most vulnerable babies and walking alongside their families. There is so much worth celebrating!

Since opening our doors in October 2022, 210 babies and more than 225 parents have received care and support through Maddie’s Place. Babies experiencing withdrawal have been held, comforted and given the specialized care they need to heal, while parents have remained close to their babies and received support for recovery, housing, basic needs and rebuilding their lives.

Four years ago, none of this existed in our community. Today, families depend on it. We’re determined to be here for the next baby who needs us. But right now, we need our community’s help to make that possible.

Maddie’s Place is facing a serious financial challenge. Unlike most healthcare providers, we are not currently reimbursed for the care we provide. National Opioids Settlement funding provided through the Washington State Legislature along with $750,000 from Spokane County covers approximately 62.5% of our annual operating costs, leaving $1.63 million each year that must be raised through charitable donations and private foundation grants.

This year, donations have fallen significantly. In recent months, they have been running at approximately half of last year’s pace. We cannot wait and hope that changes.

We have taken immediate and painful steps to reduce expenses while protecting the heart of our mission. We have reduced our planned infant capacity from 16 babies to eight, eliminated staff positions, temporarily closed our Maddie’s Closet resource center to the broader community, paused expansion and improvement projects that aren’t expressly funded by designated grants already secured, and suspended discretionary spending.

Meanwhile, we continue working diligently toward a sustainable long-term reimbursement model so that Maddie’s Place, and programs like ours, can someday be paid for providing this essential healthcare.

But we have to remain open long enough to get there.

Last spring, one of our longtime donors quietly stopped by. She has supported Maddie’s Place generously over the years and has never wanted recognition. She handed us a gift in a plain white envelope together with a note containing four simple words:

“Keep the lights on.”

Those words brought tears to our eyes, and they have stayed with us.

Because keeping the lights on means so much more than paying the bills. It means that suffering babies have a safe space to heal. It means a nurse and infant care specialist are there to comfort a baby experiencing withdrawal. It means a mother can sleep just feet from her baby while working on her recovery. It means families can remain together during one of the most vulnerable times of their lives.

Today, we are asking our community to help us keep the lights on.

If Maddie’s Place has ever meant something to you—if you have met one of our families, held one of our babies, volunteered, attended an event, followed their stories, supported our work, or simply believe these babies deserve the very best start we can give them—please consider making a gift today.

For four years, this community has made Maddie’s Place possible.

210 babies. More than 225 parents. Four years of healing, hope and second chances.

We are incredibly proud of what we have built together, and we are not ready to stop. With your help, we can keep the lights on, keep caring for babies and families, and keep fighting for the future they deserve.

Please help us keep hope alive and write the next chapter of Maddie’s Place.

With gratitude and hope,

Shaun Cross

President and CEO

Maddie's Place

Maddie's Place provides medical care in a nurturing environment for substance-exposed infants, together with loving, wraparound support for their caregivers.

Maddie’s Place is a free-standing recovery nursery for babies experiencing withdrawal due to prenatal substance exposure. We provide high quality, holistic, multi-disciplinary medical and non-medical care for infants with prenatal substance exposure (including Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome) and wraparound support for their parents/caregivers.

Our comprehensive model of care brings babies safely through their withdrawal, facilitates early bonding whenever possible, offers hope and support to parents struggling with substance abuse, strengthens families, improves early intervention, and helps mitigate the long-term effects suffered by children with in-utero substance exposure.