Living in a Diaper Desert

A new study by Rice University researchers finds that children who grow up in poor neighborhoods are more likely to be obese. The link between poverty and obesity has shown up in many studies. What’s different about this research is that the neighborhood itself, rather than the family’s economic status, is singled out. Author Justin Denney, a Rice sociologist, explains:

We know there are characteristics specific to families and individual children that are associated with obesity. Those relationships are pretty well understood at this point, but less well understood are community influences, such as the social and demographic characteristics of the places people live. Neighborhood poverty is associated with childhood obesity above and beyond the poverty status of the child’s family and other individual and family characteristics. This tells us there is something about the community that is also influencing childhood obesity.

In poor neighborhoods, residents pay higher prices for lower quality food. Here’s an interesting exercise: Go to Google Maps and type in the zip code of the poorest neighborhood in your area. Then use the “search nearby” function to look for supermarkets. You’ll find convenience stores, delis and so on. My guess is that you won’t find many places to buy broccoli. Certainly, you won’t see the kind of competition that spurs the supermarket price wars that can lead to great sales on products like chicken breasts and bags of apples in suburban neighborhoods. That’s why many urban areas are referred to as “food deserts.”

There are some admirable programs, such as urban farmer’s markets, under way to bring healthy food to poor neighborhoods. We also need to start thinking about “diaper deserts.”

Many parents buy their diapers at warehouse clubs, where they are most affordable. But to get that good deal, they need a car, a nearby warehouse club, money for the membership, space to store a case of diapers and enough cash (or credit) to be able to buy in bulk.

The next best deal on diapers is found in supermarkets. Again, parents need a few things to take advantage of supermarket prices: a car and/or a nearby supermarket and enough cash (or credit) to be able to buy in diapers in the packages generally sold in these markets.

Parents who have none of these resources buy their diapers in convenience stores within walking distance of their homes. The packages are small — sometimes as few as six in a box — and the per-diaper price is the highest of any option you’ll find.

People often say to me: Why don’t these families choose reusable cloth diapers? Because renters typically don’t have washing machines, and many laundromats don’t allow people to wash diapers. Even if a family is lucky enough to have a facility in their neighborhood where they can wash diapers, imagine the logistics. A pregnant mom was recently thrown off a city bus because the smell of her baby’s soiled diaper offended the driver. How would people react to a parent carrying a sack of dirty diapers? Add to that the difficulty of managing a child (or children) on public transportation.

So there you have it — a diaper desert. That’s why so many struggling families report choosing between paying the electric bill, buying food or purchasing enough diapers to change their babies whenever they are wet.

Much attention has been focused on changing food deserts for the sake of the nation’s health, as it should be. Let’s not forget, though, that good food is not the only thing a child needs. No community will be a healthy place for a child to grow up until all a baby’s basic needs are accessible and affordable.

Follow Joanne Goldblum on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jgoldblum

This article was first published in the Huffington Post on November 15, 2012.

National Diaper Need Awareness Week

This year, the National Diaper Bank Network is recognizing the week of September 10-17 as National Diaper Need Awareness Week, and local diaper banks across the country have asked their state and local officials to do the same. But more than merely declaring a week, we are acknowledging that the country is becoming more and more aware of the fact that diapers are a basic need for infants, toddlers, and those who suffer from incontinence, and that more people are willing to do something about it.

We have come very far in bringing attention to diaper need in the eight years since I began this journey in 2004. When I started The Diaper Bank in New Haven, CT there were very few diaper banks in America, so I looked to the example of the Diaper Bank of Southern Arizona, the nation’s first diaper bank. That program began in 1994 when a small consulting firm in Tucson, Arizona held a diaper drive during the holiday season to assist a local crisis nursery. Encouraged by the enthusiastic response, and seeing the great need in their community, the firm made the December Diaper Drive an annual tradition, and within five years they were collecting 300,000 diapers each December, benefiting families at 30 local social service agencies. In 2000, the diaper drive effort was spun off into an independent non-profit organization, the Diaper Bank of Southern Arizona, which continues to provide desperately needed diapers to the people of southern Arizona.

The Diaper Bank of Southern Arizona served as my inspiration in 2004 when I decided to start a diaper bank. Through my work with families in need New Haven, I learned that many of the hygiene products I took for granted, such as toilet paper, toothpaste, and diapers, were not available to people who had only food stamps to buy their groceries. The need for diapers, which are so critical for a baby’s health and comfort, was particularly acute. I started small, working out of my living room, but in a few years time, with the help of many others, what started as The New Haven Diaper Bank (now, The Diaper Bank) has grown into the nation’s largest diaper bank, distributing over 14 million diapers since its inception.

The success of these diaper banks and others inspired similar efforts throughout the country. As awareness of the problem of diaper need grew, small but passionate groups of people responded by founding diaper banks in their communities as independent organizations, through their churches, and as part of the work of existing relief agencies. There are now over 150 diaper banks in America. Many of these organizations are quite small, but the difference they make is unmistakable. Still, however, the need for diapers far outstrips their ability to satisfy it.

There are 5.7 million babies and toddlers living in low-income families who may struggle to provide diapers for their children. These children are at greater risk for severe diaper rash, dermatitis, and other health problems. For their families, a baby crying because of a wet diaper that cannot be changed adds to the stress on parents struggling to make ends meet.

The purpose of Diaper Need Awareness Week is to recognize that there are people in the United States who struggle to provide clean, dry diapers for their children, and to celebrate the fact that there are organizations like diaper banks that can help people obtain the diapers they need.

It is also to recognize the tremendous strides already made in raising awareness of the need. I recently checked the number of mentions of “diaper banks” on webpages using Google, and the amount of web activity for diaper banks by year has increased dramatically. In 2004, when I first started my diaper bank, there were only 94 mentions of “diaper bank” on webpages for the whole year. In the first eight months of this year alone, that number has increased nearly two orders of magnitude to 7800. I expect that by the end of Diaper Need Awareness Week, that number will increase even more.

Across the country, there will be diaper-need focused events that week, including local area diaper drives, discussion panels on why diapers matter, fundraising events, op-eds in their local newspapers, and proclamations by governors and mayors declaring the week “Diaper Need Awareness Week.”

We at NDBN are starting the week with a bang, holding our first ever Diaper Bank Conference in Washington, DC, where forty diaper bank leaders will gather to learn more about how to make their efforts go farther. We hope by holding the conference in Washington, that we can demonstrate that grassroots charitable action can effect change in our country, and address a need experienced in places as diverse as Chattanooga, Tennessee and Santa Monica, California, and Lewisville, North Carolina and Seattle, Washington.

Why should this matter to you? Because this group of people are working together to change their communities, their states and their country by coming together to support people in need. The more activities there are around Diaper Need Awareness Week the more people will learn about the significance of this issue.

Please consider holding a diaper drive, hosting an event, donating to you local diaper bank or donating to the National Diaper Bank Network.

 — originally published in the Huffington Post, August 22, 2012.

Related articles

• Helping to Start a Diaper Bank (seekinglagom.com)
• Diaper Banks…..Join One Or Start One. (tcmag.wordpress.com)
• Area’s needy babies have ‘Blessed Bottoms’ (tbo.com)
• The High Cost of Poverty – Diapering Edition (diaperbanknetwork.wordpress.com)

Is It Luck?

I received an e-mail the other day that broke my heart. The young woman wrote that she cared for three children in diapers, one of whom was the niece her sister couldn’t take care of anymore. This woman did not work because daycare for three children cost more than she made. This arrangement worked while her fiancé was working, but he had recently, unexpectedly, lost his job. And now they couldn’t pay for diapers.

The young lady who sent me that e-mail describes both luck and choices. She and her fiancé were doing well enough that they chose to take in her niece so she could keep her niece from entering the child welfare system. That shows generosity — she was lucky enough to be able to help someone else. Then bad luck hit. Her fiancé, who had a good job, was laid off. Now she has three children under three years old, all in diapers. She thought she had made good choices and that she and her family were financially set. Turned out bad luck got in the way.

The trajectory of our lives is determined by a series of choices and luck, but it seems to me that many people discount how big a role luck plays. From the perspective of a baby, the family the baby is born into is a matter of luck. The child has no choice in this matter, and has done nothing one way or another to deserve one family more or less than the other. The child’s only action to this point is being born. As a studyreleased by the Urban Institute found, children born into wealth tend to live life as wealthier adults.

Children born into poverty are more likely to live in poverty as adults than people who were not born into poverty. Among children who are never poor, only 1 percent spent half their early adult years living in poverty. On the other hand, 32 percent of persistently poor children go on to spend half their early adult years living in poverty.

Sometimes this luck translates into an ability to make choices. For example, according to the Social Science Research Council, if you were lucky enough to be born to educated parents, you are more likely to pursue a college degree.

Children whose parents have at least a college degree enter college at more than twice the rate of children whose parents did not graduate high school.

Although pursuing a college degree involves making a choice, it also involves luck. If there are simply too many obstacles — the cost of tuition is prohibitive, you can’t afford to pay the application fee or the fee to take the college board exams, or your family cannot afford for you to quit your afterschool job — you will in effect not have the opportunity to make the choice.

Our lives are certainly shaped by our innate qualities as human beings — raw intelligence, mechanical aptitude, the ability to relate to others, and so on — but our ability to capitalize on those qualities depends in large part on luck. Were you lucky enough to have a stable family life that allowed you to focus on schoolwork and training to perfect these qualities? Were you lucky enough to have the opportunity to exercise these qualities and turn them into an asset for future earnings or opportunities?

Your ability to rebound from these turns of luck also depends on luck — how much good or bad luck you had before. Maybe you can recover from one unlucky break, for example, you get laid off, but can you recover from several unlucky breaks? You lose your job, your neighbor has a fire in their apartment so you must evacuate and then someone rear ends your car in an accident — can you recover from all of that at once?

People living paycheck-to-paycheck might have the cushion necessary to sustain a little bit of bad luck. But a long run of bad luck probably not. Indeed, unless you are really lucky most of us don’t have the resources to carry us through a really long run of bad luck. And bad luck tends to beget more bad luck. You don’t have enough money for gas, so you have to rely on the bus, which is late, so you miss the big interview. You do not have enough money to buy diapers so you cannot bring your child to daycare so you lose a day’s wage. You literally cannot afford to work.

It is both luck and choices in my life that have allowed me to be in a position to help the young lady I described above find diapers. But what if I were less lucky? Would I be asking for diapers now? And would someone luckier than me choose to help?

In my life I have met many people who have had a lot of luck — good and bad and made lots of choices — both good and bad. My point is, regardless of your situation in life — both luck and choices play a role. We should all keep that in mind as we judge those around us.

Related articles

• Your Responses: Do You Attribute Success to Luck? (pbs.org)
• Empowering the next generation (unicef.org.au)
• Earned Dignity (moot.typepad.com)

Trucks Filled with Diapers

. . . are surprisingly hard to unload, particularly if the diapers were on pallets that were loaded on the truck sideways.  I can say this now from first hand experience, since I participated in my first truck unloading last week, as a board member of The Diaper Bank in North Haven, CT.  The Diaper Bank is serving as a hub for our east coast distribution of diapers this month, and received two truckloads of diapers, each containing 268,240 diapers.  The diapers in this truckload came on 30 pallets, or more precisely, what seemed to me to be 30 double decker pallets, which created a high and not entirely stable stack of diapers held together with shrink wrap.  Sort of.  When the pallet jack was operated by less experienced hands, the diapers could (and did) topple over, creating a cascade of boxes in the middle of the warehouse.

Have I mentioned this was my first actual experience with a truck full of diapers?  I have been on a board of The Diaper Bank for nearly three years, and part of my current work duties is to help orchestrate the flow of diapers across the country (although I admittedly leave most of the orchestration to the very capable and charming Chris Blake, senior vice president of our distribution partner, Kids in Distressed Situations).  But I had never before seen what a truck load of diapers looks like.  Now I have. It is a [expletive deleted] lot of diapers.

And the diapers were not loaded on nicely so that we could use the pallet jack to get them off relatively quickly (getting 30 pallets off a truck, even with a pallet jack is not a “quick” process).  The pallets were all turned, so initially we started unloaded box by box to clear one pallet out of the way to get the next off with the pallet jack.  (A pallet jack, for the uninitiated is sort of like a manual fork lift.  It has two long prongs which go into the openings at the bottom of the pallet and allows you to lift the pallet off the floor so you can roll the pallet away to where you want it in the warehouse.  But you need to be able to get to the two slots at the bottom of each pallet to use it.  If they are turned so that the slots are perpendicular to the side of the truck, and thus unaccessible, you can’t use the jack.)  Then the ever resourceful Kym Hunter, Program Director of The Diaper Bank, got the great idea to strap belts around the pallets so we could pull them into the open area of the truck so we could maneuver a pallet jack around to pick them up.  Not  quite as efficient as having straightforward access to the pallet slots, but a definite improvement over unstacking the pallets box by box. (Here’s a picture of Kym Hunter and Eboni Costi after wrestling a doubledecker pallet to the warehouse) 

Having seen how much space 268,240 diapers take, I now have a better appreciation for how many diapers that really is.  But I am also even more amazed when I realize how little that number will do to help the diaper need problem facing our nation.  Without getting into questions about sizes and such, and assuming an average of 50 diaper changes a week, 268,240 diapers would provide a week’s worth of diaper changes for 5,364 children, or a year’s worth of changes for about 104 children.  The Diaper Bank in North Haven helps 4000 families monthly.  Even if these diapers were going to stay in North Haven, they would be a great help, but not enough.  These diapers, however, are destined not only for The Diaper Bank, but will also be distributed to other diaper banks in the Northeast.  And there are still other trucks filled with diapers going out to other distribution points throughout the country (another shout out to Chris Blake–THANK YOU).

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, “So How Many Diapers Do We Need?,”  we need billions of diapers to help the 5.7 million infants and toddlers living in poor and low-income families. Every little bit helps–every package of diapers you bring to a local diaper bank helps a family in need, and every dollar you give can be used to buy diapers.   Help us close the diaper gap.  

Related articles

• So How Many Diapers Do We Need? (diaperbanknetwork.wordpress.com)
• Diaper Changing Your Baby (enfamil.com)
• The High Cost of Poverty – Diapering Edition (diaperbanknetwork.wordpress.com)

Some thoughts on Independence Day

Tomorrow we celebrate Independence Day, the official “birthday” of the United States.  Often, we celebrate by considering what it means to be an American.

One of the enduring aspects of the American character is our appreciation of the independent individual–the person who can make his or her way in the world without a helping hand.  But the truth is, we all need a helping hand.  Whether it is your parents or other caregiver who taught you how to walk, speak, and care for yourself, the teacher who taught you how to read, write, add, and think critically, the mentor who took you under his or her wing at work, or anyone else who lent a helping hand, we all can look back at a point in our lives when we needed help in obtaining the position we hold and the things have so we could be “independent individuals.”  In truth, one of the things that makes America great is that there are so many people in our lives willing to reach out and help others pull themselves up.

For families in need, diaper banks can provide that helping hand to achieving independence.  A family without diapers cannot place their children in quality child care, limiting their ability to go to work or school. A family without diapers can sink into a funk of despair and stress that makes it difficult to focus on any higher order need beyond clothing and feeding their children, resulting in less opportunity to stimulate children’s intellect and motor development to prepare them for success in life. A baby without diapers lives in daily discomfort, limiting his ability to absorb the world around him.  Diapers can help families and children focus on obtaining those skills and economic position that will allow them to succeed independently.

Help us help families in need to obtain the independence that is the American ideal.  Give generously to your local diaper bank, or consider holding a diaper drive in your community to celebrate what makes America great.

Chart of the day

Although diapers cannot be bought with food stamps or WIC, families that received cash assistance through TANF could use that money to buy diapers (provided there was any money left after buying other necessities). As the amount of unrestricted cash assistance diminishes, families no longer have discretion to use any TANF money they might get to buy diapers. Diaper banks are more critical than ever. Give generously to your local diaper bank. Contact us to find your local diaper bank or for help in starting a diaper bank near you. http://DiaperBankNetwork.org. Help us close the diaper gap!

occasional links & commentary

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (pdf),

Many policymakers continue to claim that the 1996 welfare reform law which created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program was a major success. They see the TANF program’s design and block grant structure as a model for the reform of other safety net programs.

TANF’s record over the last 15 years shows, however, that its role as a safety net has declined sharply over time. In 1996, for every 100 families with children living in poverty, TANF provided cash aid to 68 families. By 2010, it provided cash assistance to only 27 such families for every 100 in poverty. . .

The 1996 welfare law gave states broad flexibility over how to design their TANF programs and allocate state and federal TANF funds. This is one reason why the decline in TANF-to-poverty ratios was much more…

View original post 51 more words

Helping Babies Escape Poverty by Helping Parents Finish High School

A recent report issued by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy identifies a direct link between teen pregnancy and high school dropout rates.

In 2010, the latest data available, 367,752 infants were born to teenage mothers.  Although this number is a record low, the United States still has the largest number of teen pregnancies in the developed world.  The numbers vary by state, with Mississippi having the highest teen birthrate in the U.S.  (Mississippi is also the location of many of the people looking for diapers who call us.)

Teen-aged mothers face a huge number of obstacles in escaping poverty, and as a result, so do their children.  One of the greatest obstacles is the difficulty teen moms have in completing their high school education (not to mention any post-secondary education).  According to the National Campaign, only 40 % of teen mothers finish high school and less than 2% of teen mothers finish college by age 30.  Dropout rates are particularly high for Latinas students.

There are programs that help parents stay in school.  For example, the Elizabeth Celotto Day Care  at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, CT, provides high quality child care services to the children of students.  The program has dramatically improved the graduation rate for local teen moms.  The program is even more effective because it provides diapers for the children through a partnership with The Diaper Bank in North Haven, Connecticut.  Prior to the partnership, the child care center noticed that students were staying home from school when they did not have enough diapers for their children that day, often at the end of the month.  Since that the formation of the partnership with The Diaper Bank, student attendance, and graduation rates, have improved.

The potential for such partnerships between high school based programs and diaper banks exists across the country.  The Inland NW Baby Diaper Bank provides diapers to a local high school parenting program, as shown in this great documentary.  Partnerships like these are just one example of how diaper banks can provide a “bootstrap” to help lift teenage parents out of poverty.  Give generously to your local diaper bank, and help us ensure that there are diaper banks available everywhere to help parents finish their education and have the best opportunity to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

Related articles

• Struggling to Climb out of the Hole of Poverty (diaperbanknetwork.wordpress.com)

Diapers: They’re not just for babies

I received a call a few days ago from a woman looking for some source of assistance for her brother who suffered from incontinence and had to wear what are commonly known as adult diapers.  Our posts on this blog have tended to address the diaper need that affects babies and their families; however, many adults, particularly seniors living on limited incomes, suffer from incontinence.  Many of these people have difficulty affording adult incontinence supplies and diapers.  And their lives, and those of their families and loved ones, are adversely affected by the lack of access to incontinence supplies.

Urinary incontinence affects approximately 13 million persons in the United States, with as many as 25 million experiencing transient or ongoing incontinence.  Most of these people are older adults, many of whom may be living on limited incomes with limited buying power once medical expenses are factored in.  In addition, many disabled people are obliged to wear diapers for a variety of reasons, incontinence and inability to use a bathroom unaided among the most common.

Often, people dealing with incontinence problems are among those who have the fewest resources.  According to the Cornell University Online Resource for U.S. Disability Statistics in 2009, an estimated 26.4% percent of the population between 21 and 64 with a disability had incomes below the poverty line.  These numbers only include people with disabilities who are living independently, either alone or with family – not those who are institutionalized and have greater access to care.  According to the U.S. Census Current Population Survey in 2010 9% of adults 65 and older lived below the federal poverty line. However, using the U.S. Census Bureau’s alternative measurement of poverty, as many as 16.1% of U.S. seniors are living in poverty once medical care and other costs of living are factored in.  Elderly Americans spend on average 19% of their total income on out-of-pocket medical expenses annually. Out-of-pocket expenses include health insurance premiums, medical copayments, and prescriptions.  Once those costs are paid, however, many seniors are unable to pay for critical services.

Many insurance programs and Medicare programs will not pay for adult diapers, particularly if the incontinence is not diagnosed as a separate medical condition.  Even when it is identified as a separate condition, some state run Medicare will not pay for diapers even if they pay for other supplies.  (You can find your state’s coverage by using this link and finding Urological supplies.)

It is estimated that by 2015 one in four Americans will be over the age of 65. At a time when communities need to be building infrastructure and planning to care for our increasing aging populations, services are instead being reduced for even the lowest-income seniors.

In “A Report to the Community,” the Community Needs Assessment Process 2006–2009 Area Plan on Aging report, Pima Council on Aging, an Arizona Senior Service Agency, identified as major problem areas for their community “lack of sufficient income to meet basic needs; lack of transportation and affordable health care, including dental care; need for in-home support, including home maintenance and repair; isolation and need for advocacy. The overriding concern of seniors is to find ways in which to continue living in their own homes for as long as possible.”  According to the National Association for Continence, incontinence is the second leading reasons for institutionalization of the elderly in nursing homes and 53% of homebound older persons are incontinent.

Many diaper banks provide incontinence supplies for adults.  The supplies distributed by local diaper banks through their partner organizations are part of a larger continuum of services that not only supports older adults in remaining in their own homes, but also contributes to their dignity and quality of life. If not for a diaper bank’s monthly incontinent supply donations to their partner agencies many local community’s elderly would be unable to leave their homes to due to fear of embarrassment, and would live in compromised comfort even while at home.  Many diaper banks provide monthly incontinent supply donations to their partner agencies because the local community’s disabled would suffer decreased quality of life, ranging from constant discomfort due to accidents to being unable to leave their homes.

Adult incontinent supplies are not donated as often as baby diapers and cost a great deal more.  As a result, diaper banks sometimes have trouble maintaining a reliable supply of adult diapers.   Consider donating to your local diaper bank to help them acquire the incontinence supplies that could make a meaningful improvement in the quality of life for a disabled person or an older person.  If you do not have a diaper bank nearby, consider donating to the National Diaper Bank Network.

Today’s Dads Can Help Close the “Diaper Gap”

Today we have a guest blogger–Vincent DiCaro of the National Fatherhood Initiative

If you have any doubts as to how “involved” dads are in the world of diapers, just ask Huggies what they think.

Huggies, the founding sponsor of the National Diaper Bank Network, unleashed a torrent of complaints from dads in response to its current advertising campaign. Without rehashing the entire incident here, the ads seemed to imply that fathers are incompetent diaper changers; the online community of dads responded; and to its great credit, Huggies listened and made changes to the campaign, which now suggests that dads, just like moms, care about the quality of the diapers they put on their children.

Why is this story relevant to the movement to get diapers into the hands of needy families?  Because it is critical that half the population of parents – dads – are called upon to help fight this fight.

There is a temptation when addressing an issue of concern to infants and toddlers to think of it as a “moms issue.” Assuredly — and we at National Fatherhood Initiative know this from 18 years of experience — it is often easier to get mothers engaged in these sorts of movements. But put another way, it is hard but very rewarding work to get dads engaged, too.

The involvement of dads communicates something very powerful about the importance of an issue. The forces that suggest that dads are “less involved” are the same forces that suggest that when they are involved, you should really pay attention.

And frankly, we are relying on outdated information in assessing the kind of parenting practices that are taking place in homes today. For example, marketers rely on the statistic that 85% of family purchasing decisions are made my moms. The problem is that no one knows where that statistic came from. More recent research — which is just starting to be used — suggests that dads, at a minimum, share in most family purchases and are in the lead on many. This indicates that dads are much more involved in what happens in the home than they were even 10 years ago.

To this point, most of the dads I know in the 25-35 age range (myself included) change just as many diapers and spend just as much time with their children as their wives do.

So, how do we get dads engaged in the mission of closing the diaper gap? First, we have to tell them that they are welcome. Dads often feel that certain territories are “mom only” places and they best keep out. Let’s avoid that. Second, you have to call dads out as dads. If you say, “calling all parents” dads will just assume it is meant for moms. Let’s avoid that, too. Finally, bring partners on board that are not the “usual suspects.” If all of the sponsors and organizational partners are ones that only moms identify with, dads will not feel as though “this is for them.” Get distinctly male entities involved, and that will communicate something powerful to the dads out there.

It won’t be easy, but it will certainly be worth it. When dads are involved, everyone wins – dads, moms, and especially kids.

Vincent DiCaro

Vice President, Development and Communication

National Fatherhood Initiative

20410 Observation Drive

Suite 107
Germantown, MD 20876
Phone: 240-912-1270
Fax: 301-948-4325
Email: vdicaro@fatherhood.orgWebsite: http://www.fatherhood.org

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nationalfatherhoodinitiative
Blog: http://thefatherfactor.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/thefatherfactor

Raising Awareness

One of our stated goals at the National Diaper Bank Network is to raise awareness of diaper need.  By “raising awareness,” we mean spreading the word that there are people in the United States who struggle to provide clean, dry diapers for their children, and that there are organizations like diaper banks that can help these people obtain the diapers they need.  This process of telling people that other people need and cannot afford diapers is so much a part of organizing and running a diaper drive or a diaper bank that even directors of diaper banks sometimes are unconscious of how often they “raise awareness” as they work to raise diapers and funds and connect people with diapers. And because the need is so apparent to those of us who deal with the issue everyday, we almost forget that not everyone thinks about how necessary diapers are to a family with very young children.   But diaper need is often not immediately self-evident to those who no longer rely on diapers (for themselves or their family members). They need to be reminded that children without clean diapers suffer from diaper rash and other health problems, and that a baby crying because of a wet diaper that cannot be changed because there are no more diapers adds to the stressors on parents struggling to make ends meet.  We think that the more directions from which the message is sent, the more likely it is to take root.

For that reason, we are thrilled whenever we see someone commenting on the need for diapers and letting others know there is such a need.  In his blog documenting an experiment to conduct 366 Random Acts of Kindness this year, Ryan describes giving diapers to the Bundle of Joy Diaper Bank in Chicago after researching what to do with his baby’s unused diapers.  We also recently learned of Pastor Eric’s planned Ride across America for Diapers, in which he will ride from Washington State to Washington, DC, spreading word about the desperate need for diapers in many communities in this country.  The more messengers carrying the message, the farther it will travel.

As we raise awareness of the need, it is also important to remind people that there are many dedicated individuals and organizations working to address the need in their communities and across the country, otherwise the problem can seem  insurmountable.  Many diaper banks were formed in isolation, and we have only just begun to build this network of diaper banks, so many people who may be aware of diaper need may not be aware of the actions that they can take in their communities to help.  But we anticipate that as word spreads about NDBN and the network of diaper banks located in communities throughout the country that people will be encouraged to seek out their local diaper bank to make a contribution to help or, for those located in areas where there is no diaper bank, start a diaper bank of their own.

Tell everyone that there is a need for diapers and why, and how they can help.  Embrace your local media, and seek opportunities to talk about the need in your communities.  And when you meet someone spreading the word–whether on a bicycle or on a blog–embrace them as a fellow convert, and let them know what you are doing to help.  Also, let people know we’re here to help, whether to frame the issue of diaper need, draft press releases,  share collective knowledge, or help fledgling diaper banks get off the ground and existing diaper banks expand to address their community’s need.