Every Woman Counts

Emma Kate Safris was born on March 9th, 2001. Eight days later, on St. Patrick's Day, she was gone.

Emma was born with multiple congenital heart defects. Her heart was incompatible with life. She wasn’t a good candidate for a heart transplant—she was fragile, having been in congestive heart failure in utero and not breathing on her own. Choosing to put her on a transplant list meant the possibility of taking a heart from an otherwise healthy child. It felt like more suffering, and even if the transplant was successful Emma’s suffering wasn’t over. She would need a new heart every 10 years for the rest of her life. We believed we would be choosing a life of hospitals for her and for our family. On St. Patrick’s Day 2001 we removed the tubes and wires and machines. Our baby girl died peacefully in our arms.

20 years has passed since we last held our baby girl, but her legacy lives on every single day thanks to the generosity of friends, family and total strangers who support the Count the Kicks Campaign. Today in the United States, 1 in 160 pregnancies ends in stillbirth. African-American women lose babies to stillbirth at a rate over 2X that of white women. We launched Count the Kicks to reduce those numbers and ensure that fewer parents walk in our shoes...and it's working!

In the 10 years since its launch in our home state of Iowa, our state's stillbirth rate decreased by 32%.

Today, we are partnered with 11 state health agencies nationwide.
Our Count the Kicks materials and free Count the Kicks app are available nationwide.
We have 40 ambassadors in over 30 states and countries serving as powerful advocates for stillbirth prevention.
And the best news of all... babies are being saved. YOU CAN MEET SOME OF THEM HERE.

Emma is not here in the way we thought she would be. We never got to watch her take her first steps, dance in her first recital or graduate from high school. We wonder what she'd be like...an athlete like her little brother, a great leader like her older brother or kind and easy-going like her sister.

Yet while she is not here, she IS here.

Emma lives on through the healthy babies born to parents who were educated about Count the Kicks. Thanks to the kindness and generosity of people like you, we feel her here EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Will you help us celebrate 20 years?

It has been 20 years since Emma came into our lives, and we have a lofty goal to celebrate. We would be honored if you would join us in our mission to raise $20,000 in her honor. You can do so in several ways:

How can I get involved?

You can participate as an individual, create a team, join a team, become a Table Captain or a sponsor.

Participate as an individual: Choose to purchase a ticket OR donate at the $60+ level and you will receive an event link to virtual Every Woman Counts 2021 and a custom Raygun Count the Kicks t-shirt. As an individual, you are pledging to participate but not fundraise.
Create a Team: Create a team and invite your friends to donate. If you create a team, you are pledging to ask others to donate to your fundraiser. You’ll create your own personal page, share your story and photos and encourage participation from friends and family. With the help of social media, that’s really easy to do! We have some amazing prizes for the TOP TEN individual fundraising individuals (this could be a team captain participant or an individual team member) with recognition also being given to the top fundraising team.
Table Captain: There are two ways to become involved and earn this status.
1. Is a one-click option what you are looking for? This $600 package is for you! By donating to our mission in this manner, you will receive:10 event t-shirts, event links for you and 9 guests, a Virtual Event box (including printables, photo booth props, event recipes, Spotify playlist and more!). We will again be recognizing Table Captains with social media and event day recognition.
2. Create a team and invite your friends to donate. Once you reach the $600 level, you will be recognized on social media and at the event as a table captain.
  1. If you create a team, you are pledging to ask others to donate to your fundraiser. You’ll create your own personal page, share your story and photos and encourage participation from friends and family. With the help of social media, that’s really easy to do!
3. All $600+ Teams will achieve table captain “status” and recognition.
Join a Team: By joining a team, you are adding to the fundraising goal of that team. You are registering and participating as a member of that team.

Remember -- we have some amazing prizes for the TOP TEN individual fundraising individuals (this could be a team captain participant or an individual team member) with recognition also being given to the top fundraising team.

Sponsor the Event: You can also choose to sponsor a team to add to their fundraising goal, or become a sponsor of the event. Learn more about the benefits of becoming a sponsor by clicking here.

Thank you for partnering with us to honor Emma and all babies gone too soon. Together, we will ensure that there legacies live on in the healthy babies born every single day.

Watch more of Emma's story and the stories of the four other founders' little girls as told by their adoring daddies. You will not forget this moving tribute to the five angels whose legacies live on through Count the Kicks.