Model Behavior: Janie Busbee

Long before Janie Busbee founded the nonprofit Mother to Mother to provide essential health and wellness items to low-income children in Tennessee, she was a natural volunteer. “My parents say that by the time that I was 4 years old, they had been told by my teacher about my helping others,” says Janie, a veteran financial adviser who worked in Philadelphia and Boston before moving to Tennessee with her husband and son. 

In 20 years of providing diapers, clothes, strollers, cribs and car seats to children up to 10 years of age, Janie calculates that she has helped more than 965,000 children, promoting health and safety while also reducing waste of gently used products. But Janie had an even more audacious goal when she started Mother to Mother: Her initial mission statement sought to end global poverty by 2010.

“The nonprofit world of poverty has been humbling and frustrating,” she says. “It has been something that I can’t just fix.” In the face of that intractable challenge, Janie takes inspiration from Nelson Mandela, who said, “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” 

For her significant part, Janie supports community baby showers across Tennessee. She collects donations of new hygiene products, including diapers and wipes, and gently used equipment, such as high chairs, playpens and baby gates, at MTM’s headquarters on Allied Drive. And she directs a fleet of two buses and a van to deliver items where they are needed across the state. Someday she hopes to expand Mother to Mother to her home state, North Carolina.

“We have always known how important all the items that we distribute are to our families,” she says. “We have saved lives in the car seats that we give away. We ease the financial burden on these families as well as show them that someone cares.”

Dress: Carolina Herrera (model’s own)

Necklace: Margaret Ellis Jewelry

Shoes: Model’s own