Community Baby Shower: Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Community Baby Shower - W.A.T.C.H, Human Values, and Parenting.
On July 19, 2025, the Sri Sathya Sai Center of Fort Lauderdale participated in the annual Deerfield Beach Community Baby Shower. This event, organized in partnership with Deerfield Beach Community Cares and the Broward Healthy Start Coalition, hosted 200 expectant and new parents.
The W.A.T.C.H. Parenting Initiative
The Ft. Lauderdale Sai Center sponsored a booth focused on effective parenting, specifically highlighting the profound importance of story time and choosing human values-based books.
Our volunteers introduced the mnemonic “W.A.T.C.H.” (Watch your Words, Actions, Thoughts, Character, and Heart) to emphasize how a parent’s behavior serves as the primary model for their child. The booth activities linked this concept directly to reading:
- Words: How language in books benefits reading development.
- Actions: The benefits derived from the Action of reading together.
- Thoughts: The positive Thought processes promoted through story time.
- Character: The value-based Character development arising from choosing inspiring books.
- Heart: The necessity of Heart-to-Heart connections forged during story time.
Volunteers welcomed families with informational flyers (in English, Spanish, and Creole) and W.A.T.C.H. magnets. They encouraged parents to begin reading values-based books even during pregnancy to nurture a child's love, confidence, and emotional well-being from the earliest stages of life.
To make the interaction more exciting, we hosted a Jeopardy-style game focused on the W.A.T.C.H. content from the flyer. Mothers who participated received token gifts, including pacifiers, bibs, bottles, baby wipes, and clothing. Most importantly, each mother received a values-based children’s book as a gift to encourage family reading.
This special opportunity to serve expectant parents unified our volunteers as we experienced the joy of giving love to those who embody it as mothers and fathers. We witnessed how even small acts of kindness—like sharing a book or offering a gentle reminder to “watch” our words and thoughts—can plant the seeds of transformation in families. In gratitude to Sri Sathya Sai, we humbly offered this service at His Lotus Feet.