TIME: Starting a Diaper Bank

[question everything]

I went over older issues of magazines and found this TIME story from last April. Even if posted then, worth taking another look.

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Monday, Apr. 27, 2009
Starting a Diaper Bank
By Belinda Luscombe
TIME

It's often the little things that change your life. For Joanne Goldblum, it was toilet paper. As a social worker in Connecticut, she kept noticing that the families she worked with didn't have any. Eventually a client told her that TP isn't covered by food stamps or any other government-assistance program, so people just improvise. (Fast-food napkins, anyone?) In fact, no hygiene supplies are covered--including diapers.

"I saw a mother take a diaper off, empty the solids and put it back on," says Goldblum. Not having enough diapers, she realized, has far-reaching effects. "Most day-care centers require parents to provide their own," she says. And without day care, parents can't look for work or go to school. Cloth diapers don't help, because low-income families tend not to have washing machines or cars to get to the Laundromat. Moreover, she knew that babies who sit longer in their own waste get more diaper rashes and cry more. And she'd read the studies showing that more crying leads to more physical abuse.

This is how Goldblum came, five years ago, to start the Diaper Bank (a name, she notes, that sounds less comical--and is easier to raise funds for--than the Toilet Paper Bank). These days, she gives away 200,000 diapers a month in Connecticut, mostly to public-housing authorities, tenants' groups and agencies that work with low-income families.

For the first three years, she drove the diapers around herself and learned to use a pallet jack; today she has two full-time employees and buys 250,000 diapers at a time straight from a manufacturer. She has yet to find any makers who will give them to her free. Goldblum, who works on the project full time but does not draw a salary, has talked to some 50 people about starting diaper banks. "We know of six who have taken the next step," she says.

She advises them to start small. But her dreams are getting bigger. Because children with dirty clothes and bodies have a tough time at school, she'd like to see laundry machines and showers there. She'd like federal assistance programs to start covering some hygiene items. And she'd like the average citizen to realize how hard it is for people to function at the poverty line. Failing that, she'll settle for free diapers.

FOR MORE DETAILS Download a free how-to manual at thediaperbank.org

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1891733,00.html

[rurallib]

1. replying so I can find this tomorrow.

thank you for this thread.

[MADem]

2. This is a wonderful outreach program, even if the article isn't brand new. K/R. nt

[texastoast]

3. Is there a cloth diaper bank?

I spent about $150 (in today's money) on cloth diapers for my first-born plus laundry detergent and water and electric bills. I worked hard washing them, but 250,000 in the landfill--I just can't do that with a good heart.

[Chemisse]

4. That's very nice of her

But as a mother who used cloth diapers about 80 percent of the time while raising my children, I don't have a lot of sympathy for poor people who insist on spending tons of money on disposable diapers.

I was dirt poor in the early years and did not have a washer or dryer for a number of years. When I couldn't afford the laundromat I hand washed them in a tub. I even had a little washboard (no, I am not ancient; it was very retro even then).

As things got a little easier for me, I would often splurge on disposable diapers and use them for times when I had to use day care.

I was frugal with other products too. I always had toilet paper, but never Kleenex. I never bought paper towels, and cut up old towels for rags (I still prefer the rags).

[create.peace]

5. i was like you, too, but we are not the same as the people

this woman is helping. i can pretty much guarantee you that. i looked at your journal, and think we are similar in age. also similar in resourcefulness. i washed diapers in my bathtub with a plunger if i had too, and if i could put baby and diaper pail in my ancient baby buggy and went to the laundromat. it is now over a dollar for most washers, and if you don't have a sunny place to dry the diapers, 25 cents for about 7 minutes drying. most laundromats are pretty dreadful, too. though i am about as green as you can get, by stringent standards, i think if these young mothers can have some of the stress in their lives reduced, great. i know a lot of young mothers who ARE more like we were, but these are not the ones. i would put my stress on birth control and education for young women, but not make them feel even more out of control or inadequate. i would rather see them nursing their babies than using cotton nappies. MHO

[ravishing ruby]

7. I agree with you wholeheartedly (although I don't have kids). From what I understand,

disposable diapers are very costly, not to mention the negative environmental impact. I read a reply to your post, in which the responder said that these women are not resourceful like she or you were. Well, no one teaches classes on becoming resourceful, now do they? Most of the time, it is born out of need. If anything, we should provide them a healthy supply of cotton nappies with Velcro and teach them how to wash them out at home. But to write them off as incapable of washing diapers at home seems to sell them short, IMO.

[create.peace]

8. have i wandered into another universe?

it is not a matter of 'washing them out at home.' you have to really work at completely cleaning the shit out of the diapers, do you understand? this isn't like rinsing your adult undies out in the sink. if you don't have a bathtub, and very hot water, and a place to dry them, you can end up with incompletely clean diapers and the result is diaper rash and secondary infections. have you priced cloth diapers these days either? as you have not had children and have not had to deal with cloth diapers (which was my preferred diaper, by the way) i think you might want to go into one of these homes and find out. there are a lot of other things like healthier food and a happy home that are more important.

[reincarnating ruby]

9. If you are providing all this wonderful, healthy grub

how, pray tell, will there also be enough for the disposable diapers? Did you read the other poster? She lived it! I am sure it's difficult but if there is running water for it, why not?

[create.peace]

10. that's why the ruby is a troll.....rip

[Mnemosyne]

6. The dollar store near me lists diapers as the number one stolen item. But,

these poor souls only take a couple from the package. A friend works there.

Breaks my heart.

[Imperfect World]

11. What I noticed....

.... about this article is that it talks about the children's mothers, but not their fathers.

Where are the fathers?

[Imperfect World]

12. I'm very skeptical of this part...

The article says:

"It's often the little things that change your life. For Joanne Goldblum, it was toilet paper. As a social worker in Connecticut, she kept noticing that the families she worked with didn't have any. Eventually a client told her that TP isn't covered by food stamps or any other government-assistance program, so people just improvise. (Fast-food napkins, anyone?) In fact, no hygiene supplies are covered--including diapers."

I can't afford fast food, but I always have enough toilet paper.

So I am very skeptical of this part of the article.

[Gormy Cuss]

14. What are you skeptical about, that some people can't afford TP?

Granted it's only an anecdote but I remember when we had no purchased TP for several days at a time at the end of the month. We never had paper napkins either but usually had a roll of paper towels. We would borrow some TP from neighbors and take wads of tissue off the roll at school or in other public restrooms for use at home. Most of all we were careful to do our business away from home as much as possible. So yes, sometimes one is so poor that there is no money for TP.

Disposable diapers are a major ticket item in low income households and are probably the main reason that some people "sell" their food cards.

[cutlassmama]

15. They go in the fast food places and take napkins and leave.

What is so hard to understand about that? No one said they eat there.

[pfloydguy7750]

13. Hmmm