Project Cuddle Finds Help and Homes for Unwanted Babies

When Project Cuddle founder Debbe Magnusen was just eight years old, her father took her on a trip to Mexico, where she came face to face with countless orphans. Before that day, she hadn’t even realized that some children were not lucky enough to have loving parents, or that some children had simply been abandoned at birth. Ever since, she’s been dedicated to making sure that all babies have the opportunity to be raised in loving families.

As an adult, she began taking in drug-exposed babies that their parents weren’t able to care for. Over the years, she has taken in 35 babies as a foster mother, and adopted 5 of the children. But she wanted to go beyond what she could do personally, and give unwanted children all across America a chance to thrive.

Magnusen kept hearing stories of infants being abandoned in trash cans, or suffocated by their mothers just after birth. She couldn’t bear the thought of standing by as this happened again and again—so she decided to create a 24-hour toll-free number that pregnant women could call if they needed support or knew that they didn’t want to keep their babies. In 1994, she turned the helpline into an official 501(c)(3), Project Cuddle.

Through the organization, says Magnusen, “We provide just about everything. We help them get medical help, get a driver’s license, a GED, or counseling. We give them help telling their families and being a friend, not judging them. When a girl says, ‘I hate my baby and am going to dump it,’ we don’t ask her to love the baby, we just find someone who will.”

Project Cuddle has a network of adoptive families who are waiting to adopt the unwanted babies—though, in many cases, after receiving counseling and support, the young women decide to raise their babies after all.

Thanks to a large outreach effort and celebrity sponsors like John Stamos, Project Cuddle has rescued babies throughout the United States and Canada, and has brought Project Cuddle videos into high schools in five states to help girls learn about the program. The organization has rescued 647 babies.

But it’s still not enough, says Magnusen: “Babies are abandoned 57 times a day. If everyone that hates hearing about an abandoned baby could just donate $1 to Project Cuddle, it would make a world of difference.”

If you know a pregnant woman who may be at risk of abandoning her baby, give her the phone number for Project Cuddle’s help line: 1 (888) 628-3353.

By Kathryn Hawkins