Our Mission

Little Essentials offers at-risk families living in poverty urgently needed children’s supplies and parenting education to promote the health, well-being, and safety of their children five years of age and younger.

We execute on our mission and vision through our Three E’s:

We EMPOWER the community by providing essential children’s supplies to lessen the stress that comes with living in poverty.
We EDUCATE families by providing tools and resources to strengthen parenting and individual skills.
We ELIMINATE poverty by employing community members as Little Essentials’ employees.
learn more about us here.

Our Story

In June 2010, our founder and Board Chairman, Sandie Trombert, saw a post on her neighborhood parenting group that changed her life — and the lives of thousands of New York children living in poverty.

Founder, Sandie Trombert in the old Little Essentials warehouse in 2014. — **Founder, Sandie Trombert in our warehouse**

A volunteer at a city agency posted to the group about a pregnant mother living in a homeless shelter who was desperate for baby clothes. Directly alongside her plea were posts from parents looking to give away surplus clothing, strollers, car seats and other items that their families no longer needed.

The contrast was striking.

Sandie immediately contacted the parents with items to give away. She drove around her neighborhood to collect the donations, then delivered them to the agency – all with her six-month-old baby in tow.

In the coming months, she made connections between parents donating items and local agencies that help low-income families acquire much-needed essentials. In May of 2011, Little Essentials was born.

Our Team

CEO AND BOARD PRESIDENT

In 2021, CEO and Board President Courtney Crawford launched the next chapter of LE’s programming with The Three E's. At the start of Courtney’s tenure, LE worked with 20 community partners. We now work with 80 partner organizations in five boroughs, 169 zip codes (up from 132 in 2023), and 48 council districts.

Since its founding, Little Essentials has grown from something Sandie ran out of her living room into an established organization that, together with our community partners, volunteers, Board of Directors, Advisory Board, and Committee has served over 59,000 children living in poverty and distributed 1.3 million diapers. Following Courtney’s strategic plan, Little Essentials will expand to work with 100 community partners and operate two warehouse locations, the second launching in Queens in 2026.

The Little Essentials team brings deep expertise and commitment to helping New York City families in crisis. We are advertising executives, nonprofit managers, lawyers, policy directors, pediatric clinicians, and more who have come together out of a shared passion for alleviating the suffering of our fellow New Yorkers.