Photo provided by the St. Joseph Youth Alliance By MATT PIKE St. Joseph Post The St. Joseph Youth Alliance is providing safe beds for babies, to promote safe sleeping habits. Youth Employment Program Director Anita Jolly says the program helps provide portable cribs as well as pack and plays to young families. Jolly says it's important to create a safe sleeping environment. . . "There are a lot of instances of infant deaths from suffocation, or you know co-sleeping with a parent, improper sleep surfaces," Jolly tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "So, it's easy for children to get caught up in their blankets or with a stuffed animal, or with something that shouldn't be in the crib Jolly says all the education these days is providing the same message for putting children under one into bed. "When your child is under the age of one, they don't have any blankets, any pillows, any stuffed animals, no bumper pads, no nothing," Jolly explains. "That you put your child in a sleeper or a sleep sack or a swaddle that is appropriate for the conditions." Jolly says the message being spread these days is ABC when putting a child to bed. Alone, on your back, in the crib. The St. Joseph Youth Alliance is providing portable cribs as well as pack and plays to young families in Buchanan, Andrew, Clinton and Dekalb Counties. Jolly says the alliance has been providing the service for the last three years, and this year alone, they have had quite the reach. "We've given out quite a few pack and plays and luckily, we had some that we had bought with some excess funds when we were license plate partners with the Children's Trust Fund, we were able to put back a little money, that's what the sale of those license plates were for," Jolly says. "And we were able to buy a few extra pack and plays so that we could meet the need." Jolly says the whole goal in providing these beds is to keep infants as safe as they can.