They were the happy, if largely sleepless, parents of three boys, and it had been four years since their youngest, Aldon, was born.
Perhaps the Rev. Abraham Shanklin Jr. and his wife, Ingrid, could be forgiven for thinking their family was as big as it was going to get - and for giving all their baby furniture away.
Ingrid, of course, got pregnant not long after that, and the Shanklins, a husband-and-wife ministry team based in Hanover, got a chance to start all over again.
They did so - and successfully - thanks in part to friends and family who treated them to a time-honored tradition: a baby shower.
"We didn't have a crib; we didn't even have a bib," Shanklin says. "The shower helped us restock our nursery. [But] showers also create a wellspring of connection and fellowship at a very vulnerable time."
Today, he's working to ensure that Anne Arundel's new and expectant mothers, many of them in similar situations, get help. Next weekend, a nonprofit he runs, Solid Rock International Ministry & Group, will stage "Great Expectations," a community baby shower organizers hope will draw more than 100 new and expectant moms - many of whom are likely to live in less-supportive environments than the Shanklins did.
Next Saturday, guests will have a chance to receive some of the gifts typical of showers, enjoy the support of a caring community, and perhaps most important, attend professionally staffed workshops covering the ABCs of infant care, all free of charge.
Solid Rock will even send drivers to pick up the young moms, if they have no transportation.
"We want young mothers to have access to the best resources they can to give their babies a wonderful start in life," says LaChelle Carter, Solid Rock's executive director and an organizer of the event. "They'll have access to something any new mother can use - every kind of support they might be needing, all under one roof."
Force multiplierThe idea of a community baby shower is not new in the area. The YWCA Annapolis and Anne Arundel County in Arnold once sponsored similar events semi-regularly.
"They were very popular," says Dennis Dorsey, director of outreach for Living Waters Worship Center in Odenton, which often works with the Y. "There's definitely a need out there. ... The guests were often the clientele the YWCA was already serving - young mothers, expectant mothers."
The Y, long a bulwark of assistance for county women in need, stopped doing them a few years ago because of a lack of staff. But the idea is right in the sweet spot of Solid Rock, a 10-year-old 502 (c)(3) corporation whose mission, Shanklin says, is rooted in the Christian admonition to help those in need but which is explicitly nonreligious.
The organization "aims to address not so much the spiritual as the physical, emotional and educational needs of the [wider] community," Shanklin says. "If I'm hungry, and you're bringing me something to eat, I don't care what your denomination is."
Shanklin, 45, a native of East St. Louis, Ill., is a former staff sergeant in the Air Force who brings to community work something like the military concept of force multiplication.
After feeling a call to the ministry, he graduated from Chesapeake Theological Seminary in Ellicott City, and in 1994 founded the New Life Fellowship International Church, a mostly African-American congregation that has grown to about 300 people.
In ministry work overseas, in hospitals and in prisons as well as in Anne Arundel at large, Shanklin made a name as someone who "gave 110 percent" in outreach to the community, says Tonja McCoy, the school-community liaison for Anne Arundel County public schools. He also became convinced there was a need for a small outfit one step removed from his church that could compound its impact.
He started Solid Rock, employing a handful of people with the networking savvy to connect with established organizations, get them excited about altruistic projects and persuade them to work together.
"You don't have to be a big-time nonprofit to have a huge impact," he says. "Two people can turn a community upside down." For eight years, the tiny outfit kick-started programs that targeted partners from church groups, the NAACP and the county school system to private businesses such as Food Lion, Giant and BB&T; Bank.
Solid Rock staged events at local churches that encouraged reading among kids, provided free tutoring and helped Anne Arundel County meet its goals in a court-ordered quest to narrow the academic achievement gap between white and minority students.
For seven years, he looked within his growing New Life congregation and elsewhere for the talent to help reach the goal of taking Solid Rock international.
It wouldn't take many people, he thought; just the right ones. Then they found him.
Closing gapsThe two young women arrive early for a meeting at New Life, each bearing a clipboard, a briefcase and a welcoming smile.
LaChelle Carter and Tina Dada, both 26 - the executive director and the director of programs and events for Solid Rock, respectively - project a businesswoman's clarity of purpose, but both linger near a table on which gifts for the shower are already being piled, fussing with pink ribbons and baby-blue wrapping.
Three years ago, Carter, a California native, had just completed the University of Maryland's graduate program in nonprofit management when she joined Shanklin's church due to its family-friendly feel. Dada, a Towson University-trained graphic designer, and her husband-to-be, Aaron, did the same.
Carter had already decided to do nonprofit work that helped community members in need, though she had "no target population yet." Dada mentioned she knew her way around Adobe Illustrator.
"It was a marriage made in heaven," says the pastor, who signed them both on. (Carter and Dada, like the 12 or so staff they work with, are at this point unpaid.)
It's Solid Rock's job, Carter says, to pinpoint "gaps" in the community and dream up events or programs that unite a broad range of partners to fill them. (Two projects have taken volunteers abroad, one to Kenya, another to Vanuatu in the South Pacific.)
Last summer, their first "Read-a-Thon" enlisted parents, book donors and school administrators to keep the literary skills of 25 county students sharp through the summer - then engaged sponsors, donating all proceeds to school kids in Haiti.
Last year, it occurred to Carter there might well be a need in the area to offer support to new and expectant moms. It's not uncommon for the wives of Fort Meade military personnel to be expecting - and far from home and family - even as their spouses are deployed, and counselors say teen motherhood is more common in Anne Arundel County than many realize.
Expectant teens often hide their condition until it's physically undeniable, says McCoy, the public schools liaison, and they often lack the resources or the support network to get supplies or the information they need to raise a child in a healthy way.
"Having that shower allows them to meet people with counseling or medical backgrounds," she says. "If [young mothers] are in need of an extended family, it offers them a chance to network and connect with others. And they'll be able to get things they financially can't afford, like car seats or baby beds. You can never have enough diapers, bottles and socks to get started with."
And, Carter adds, most expectant mothers or mothers of infants are exceedingly fearful of not knowing enough, whether it be about a baby's medical needs, signs of illness one should look for, appropriate activities to carry out with children, or help with breastfeeding or diaper-changing.
She mentions a college-educated friend who became pregnant well into adulthood - and who became uncharacteristically withdrawn as she realized that, through no fault of her own, she knew very little about the high-stakes world she was about to enter.
"A baby shower for her was a rallying of support and love so she knew she was not in this alone," Carter says. "I know there are several mothers out there that are in the same boat that I want to help."
Great expectations That left the planning side: the need to find business partners and speakers, drum up gift donors, create the event's format and, yes, locate the new mothers and mothers-to-be who will take advantage.
"If you do all this organizing and planning, and you're unable to find the recipients, it's a useless exercise," says Dada, herself the mother of a 6-month-old.
Friends and family threw two showers for Dada, who called the parties "first-hand experience in just how far a little bit of encouragement and care can go when one is expecting or new to motherhood."
The highlight, Dada says, was "other people's eagerness to share the excitement and joy of expecting our first child. ... It was a motivation in my organizing of the event."
Starting last September, Carter and Dada envisioned a modest event that would combine gift-giving with one or two educational programs. They connected with local businesses, churches and shelters; shared their plans through word of mouth and online; and even got a discount from Enterprise Leasing so that drivers can crisscross Anne Arundel County to pick up those who want to come. (All expectant parents in the area, and all parents of children less than a year old, are invited, though Solid Rock's drivers can only do pickups within the county.)
Dada says the response from community members wanting to help - including health-care professionals, counselors, lactation specialists and more - was so overwhelming they had to scrap their original format. There will be several speakers and a variety of question-and-answer panels.
Those attending will see infant CPR demonstrations by a Red Cross member, hear from infant behavioral and nutritional specialists and more.
But baby showers wouldn't be what they are without presents. Organizers will offer baby gifts as giveaways and as raffle prizes. There will also be an on-site store where guests can spend the free tickets they receive at the entrance.
The shower will take place at New Life Fellowship, on Harmans Road in Hanover, and Dada says those donating gifts can leave them there, where the pile of diapers, bibs and other baby supplies on a lobby table is getting bigger by the day.
More than 30 young moms and mothers-to-be have committed, Carter says. They hope to draw 150 or more.
For those who might be shy about attending, Shanklin says there will be no preaching or judgment of any kind from organizers, and that guests will feel comfortable just blending in if that's their choice.
"When they arrive, all we will know is that they want their babies to get a good start in life," says Shanklin, whose own youngest, daughter Charis, is now 11. "What else is there to know? We'll help them any way we can."
If you go What: Great Expectations: A Community Baby Shower
When: 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Jan. 23
Where: New Life Fellowship International Ministries, 7605 Harmans Road, Hanover 21076
For whom: All expectant parents and all parents of children younger than 1 year old are welcome
Admission: Free. Donors may make monetary donations or contribute new or gently used items for expectant parents, newborns and children up to 1 year old. Checks may be made out to Solid Rock International Ministry and Group. Items may be left at the New Life Fellowship International Minstries. For more information, or to arrange to be picked up for the event if you live in Anne Arundel County, call 410-850-8515 or e-mail info@solidrockimg.org.