Dimes for Diapers

This is exciting... my 10 year old daughter is doing her very first service learning project. She's picked the New Haven Diaper Bank to try to help and is hard at work both in school and online trying to fundraise. I'm using a bunch of different outlets to try to help her reach her modest goals of $500 by February 11th (that's the due date on the service learning project). Obviously I'm proud of her, and am even more excited to see her accomplish her goals.

She and I shot a video (outtakes coming soon), built a blog and started to use my Facebook account to promote her efforts (i.e. we'll do anything to raise the money!) In addition, she got the school principal to agree to let her distribute flyers to every class in school - pretty slick I thought.



Kids today, eh?!

Here's her first post on her new blog:

Hi!

This blog and web site is designed to help raise money for the New Haven Diaper Bank - I'm doing a service learning project called "Dimes and Dollars for Diapers" and my goal is to raise as much money as possible.

Here are some of the facts of why I'm doing this project:

• Safety net programs, like Food Stamps and WIC, which are supposed to provide poor children with basic necessities do not cover diapers.
• An adequate supply of diapers can cost over $100/monthly
• Infants need up to 12 diapers a day; toddlers about 8 diapers a day. In low-income households babies may spend the whole day or longer in a single diaper.
• Cloth is not an option for most poor people. Most childcare centers require parents to provide disposable diapers. Furthermore, most people living in poverty do not have easy, affordable access to washing facilities.

You should donate now because without clean diapers, lots of bad things can happen.

• Parents who are working or in school cannot take advantage of free or subsidized childcare if they cannot afford to leave disposable diapers at the childcare centers.
• Inadequate diaper changing increases the risk of numerous health problems from skin diseases to hepatitis.
• A baby crying non-stop from being in a soiled diaper for a prolonged time is at greater risk of abuse.

For more information, please visit the New Haven Diaper Bank.

Please consider visiting her blog and:

• Make a donation of course!
• Send the link her blog: http://diaperdrive.blogspot.com/ to your friends who care about babies who need diapers
• Learn more about why this is a problem