My mom and I volunteer at our local food bank. Often, young mothers come on their monthly visit for groceries asking for diapers, but they are often in short supply. The food bank relies on donations of food and non-food items from the community, and they don’t use funds to purchase diapers. Many people aren’t aware that they accept non-food items such as toiletries and diapers. On one of my recent shifts at the food bank, a client mentioned how stressful and difficult it is to make ends meet. She cannot afford childcare services, meaning she must take care of her children during the day rather than work for an income. Baby necessities like diapers are not inexpensive. I could not help noticing the worry and anxiety that she lives with added to the exhausting responsibilities that come with having a baby. This motivated me to start a diaper collection at two local childcare centers and one birthing center to alleviate some of the stresses of being a new mom, especially in times of financial hardship.

Donations

Packaging the Diapers

Most of the diapers that I collected came in opened packs or boxes because they were from when the child grew out of their diaper size. So, I needed to figure out how to sort them by size and package them in a way that the food bank could easily distribute them to clients. I considered using plastic bags for ease of packaging, but instead used hand stamped paper wrapping because plastic bags can be dangerous for babies. The paper wrapping is also more eco-friendly than plastic. I put about twenty diapers in each pack. Also, I attached a QR code label to every package, which linked people to the educational video that I created, so that they could have greater access to maternal mental health resources. Overall, I wrapped more than 180 packs!