Dallas Nonprofit Serving Mothers in Need Sees Increase in Calls for Help

A Dallas County charity is seeing a significant increase in need as North Texas mothers feel the strain of inflation and rising costs.

Bridges Family Resource Center in Cedar Hill helps mothers in need with diapers and other resources.

"I had not been working for two years with the pandemic going on and being pregnant back-to-back," said Nosarere Iduwe, a mother of two.

As a single mother, she had tough choices to make.

"I did have to prioritize what I bought when I bought it," Iduwe said.

"If you don't have diapers and wipes, your baby can't go to day care. If you don't have day care, you can't go to work. If you don't have a job, you can't make money."

Bridges is now seeing the call for help increasing significantly.

"That need, because of COVID, grew from us serving maybe five to 10 families a week to now, we are serving on average 100 families a week," said Nicole Costa, executive director of Bridges Safe House.

Costa said a lot of factors are causing more people to seek help and housing at their safe house for single mothers.

"Inflation,” Costa said. “The cost of diapers and food. The cost of housing. We've seen a 70% increase in phone calls, crisis calls, that are coming into the safe house. Shelters are full. Housing programs have closed down."

Bridges Safe House is full and has a growing waiting list.

Costa said the way the economy is now the need isn't going away anytime soon. That means they need help meeting the demand.

"We need people,” Costa said. “We need places like hope supply. We need local churches and local businesses to do diaper drives for us. We can't serve without that."

Serving those in need and changing lives.

"It turned my life into not just being a client here getting diapers and wipes, but to helping me with employment,” Iduwe said. “That meant a whole other thing to me."

To learn more about Bridges click here.