By Stephanie Bowers | Project Leader
What an amazing experience I had in Florida! Thanks to your generous support, I was able to attend the Diaper Banks of America conference. This was a great 3 day event, with over 200 diaper bank leaders from across the U.S. present. This meant not only great seminars, but also tremendous opportunity for peer to peer networking!
The majority of diaper banks (well, all except three) handle purely disposable diapers. Here at Jake's Diapers, we're a bit unique because we handle mainly cloth diapers, and only disposables for local babies and an intensive care unit in Haiti. Modern cloth diapers are a viable option for solving diaper need, but have a bit more of a learning curve! Did you know we wash and dry each cloth diaper multiple times before it's first use? This process is called "prepping", and helps to remove natural oils to increase absorbency (think of a new towel the first time you use it). Most diaper banks don't have the ability or desire to handle cloth, and it's our passion!
As a result of going to the conference, I was able to meet with a few diaper banks who are interested in providing cloth diapers. As of this week, we now are providing THREE of our fellow diaper banks with cloth diaper kits, ready for distribution!
Our first project is helping refugees in Arizona, through our collaboration with the Diaper Bank of Southern Arizona.
Our second project is helping low income rural families in collaboration with the Diaper Bank of the Ozarks.
Our third project (details still being finalized!) is with a diaper bank in Maine, serving low income famiies.
Thank you for the tremendous opportunity to help more babies, locally, nationally, and globally! You make the work we do possible. I encourage you to reach me at stephanie@jakesdiapers.org, I'd love to hear from you!
- Stephanie
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