Our story

Reese Elizabeth Hamsmith was born on June 13, 2019. We called her ReRe. She walked into a room and took the attention of everyone in it. She loved hard. She played hard. She fought harder.

On October 30, 2020, Reese swallowed a button battery. She was sixteen months old. We did not know it at the time. Button battery ingestion is often misdiagnosed for days, because the symptoms can look like a cold or a stomach bug. By the time we knew what had happened, the damage was already done.

The first year after Reese was the hardest year of our lives. It was also the year we learned that the battery in the small remote that killed our daughter sat inside a compartment that any toddler could open with their thumb or by being dropped on the floor. There were no warnings on the package. There was nothing on the product itself. There was no federal standard.

So we set out to change that.

We worked with Kids in Danger, with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, with medical professionals who had seen what we had seen, and with members of Congress who knew we were right. On August 16, 2022, the President signed Reese's Law into federal law. Every consumer product that uses a button battery is now required to secure the battery compartment and warn the family on the packaging.

It is a law named after our daughter. We are proud of it. We are also clear-eyed about what it does and does not do, and we keep pushing.

For four years, we were the country's leading voice on button battery safety. We worked alongside the battery industry to design something safer. In May 2026, Energizer launched the Ultimate Child Shield battery, a button battery designed so a child who swallows it cannot be hurt by it. It is the outcome we wanted from the day Reese died.

That outcome is also why Reese's Purpose is changing.

While we have taken steps to solve the battery problem, our work is not done. Energizer is just one company that manufactures button batteries; we need the others to innovate and create a solution as well. The rest of the home also contains problems that need to be solved. Furniture still tips over onto small children. Window blind cords still wrap. Water beads still swell. New recalls still arrive more than twice a week, and most parents never hear about them. Reese's Purpose is becoming the global resource for every family who needs to know what is dangerous and what to do about it.

We work in a network of expert partners. We name them here because we cannot do this alone.

Scroll Safe Infant Sleep for safe sleep practices

Parents for Window Blind Safety for blind cord injury prevention

Parents Against Tip-Over for furniture safety

Water bead safety advocate name and organization

Kids in Danger for product recall history and advocacy (we steward the recall digest they built)

Reese's Purpose is a small team that punches above its weight. We are based in Lubbock, Texas, and we work globally.

We are spending the next chapter helping families find hazards before hazards find them. We are building a searchable recall library that any parent can use in a moment of worry. We are adding deep-content pages on the five hazards we know best, with partner experts behind every one. We are still pushing for the next law.

In September 2026, Trista will speak in Brussels at the International Consumer Forum full event name + exact date as the United States representative on child product safety. She will not be there as the button battery expert, or as the grieving mother. She will be there as a global advocate for keeping children safe in their own homes.

Suspect button battery ingestion?