Homeownership is within reach.

Buying a home can sometimes seem like an unreachable goal. When you work with Tri Counties Bank, your local Home Mortgage Loan Specialist will walk you through products and resources designed for aspiring homeowners. It’s part of our commitment to helping our local communities grow and thrive through the power of homeownership. Low extensive background in nonprofit work, Wimbs asked if she’d be interested in helping get an idea off the ground: a nonprofit that provides funds and fee assistance for families for out-of-hospital birth, individualized postpartum support and bereavement assistance.

Locations throughout California, including seven in the Sacramento area.

“It was serendipitous magic,” Bruns says. “We were both the missing puzzle piece to doing what we wanted to do.”

Nurture Birth Cooperative was founded in 2021 with Bruns at the helm, first as manager and now executive director. As the only staff member, she relies on a volunteer board of directors who help raise funds from private donors, businesses and grants, and allocate that money to applicants.

“Nurture Birth Cooperative is really unique in design. There’s nothing like it anywhere else in the U.S.,” Bruns says. “We provide funding and fee assistance for out-of-hospital births with a midwife at home or at a birth center in Sacramento and Placer counties.

“There are so many more resources available at a birth center, like access to lactation consultants, chiropractors, etc. You don’t get that type of care at a hospital. We also offer postpartum care that’s pretty all-encompassing. How ever you need support, we want to get it for you. We also offer bereavement care for families experiencing miscarriage or stillbirth. Every community needs services like this, but there’s often no way to pay for it.”

Bruns, Wimbs and the rest of Nurture Birth Cooperative have big plans for the future, which include growing the staff and increasing community outreach. They’re keen to continue Birth Expo, an event with 40 vendors attended by 400 families. A second expo is planned this fall.

“We want to create a birth community where everyone feels welcome, whatever stage or walk of life they’re in,” Bruns says. “The rate of maternal postpartum depression and anxiety is huge in the U.S. compared to other countries. We want to be on the forefront of ‘It doesn’t have to look like that.’”

For information, visit nurturebirth. org.

Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskey@gmail.com. Previous profiles can be found and shared at InsideSacramento.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: @insidesacramento. n

Rae Ann Whitten, DDS General and Cosmetic Dentistry

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