Fox Cities Diaper Bank gets help from local companies
7:14 PM, Jun. 2, 2012 |
Written by
| By Maureen Wallenfang
Post-Crescent staff writer
How to help
Donations can be submitted online through the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region at www.cffoxcalley.org. Donations also are accepted at The Post-Crescent’s front lobby, 306 W. Washington St., Appleton; at the Community Foundation, 4455 W. Lawrence St., Appleton; and by mail to the Community Foundation.
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Moms and dads know all too well that babies need lots of diapers. The average $100-a-month cost to diaper just one little bottom can be overwhelming for low-income families.
Sympathetic Fox Cities parents have been donating generously to the “Dollars for Diapers” Do It! Community Challenge that is now in its final two weeks.
Standing right behind them are Fox Cities businesses that have stepped up over the last weeks and months to help with both the annual drive and the year-round needs of the Fox Cities Diaper Bank.
This year’s drive that began on Mother’s Day and ends on Father’s Day, June 17, has reached $19,360 toward its $30,000 goal. That includes $7,180 in individual and group donations, a $7,180 match so far from J. J. Keller Foundation and a $5,000 match from United Way Fox Cities.
“We’re a basic needs funder, and what’s more basic than diapers for a little one?” said Mary Harp-Jirschele, J. J. Keller Foundation executive director. “It dovetails right in there with food, shelter and good medical care, which are hallmarks of J. J. Keller Foundation funding.”
The Keller Foundation will match up to $10,000 in community donations.
“The Kellers love matching grants because it encourages others to give,” Harp-Jirschele said. “When they know their money will be doubled, it’s an incentive to give — and sometimes to give more.”
“Without them, it would be tough making our goal,” said Dan Flannery, executive editor of The Post-Crescent, which sponsors the diaper drive. “Two weeks are left in this campaign, and our momentum is pretty strong. We’re roughly two-thirds of the way to our goal, and it’s clear that the community is responding to a really good cause in the way we hoped they would.”
In addition to monetary donations, a number of companies held on-site diaper collections or set aside days when their employees could roll up their sleeves and volunteer.
“When we receive the diapers that we buy or get through community collections, we have to repackage them,” said Nanci Micke, vice president of marketing and communications at United Way Fox Cities, the organization that started the Fox Cities Diaper Bank a little more than a year ago. “Miller Electric has been stellar in helping us repackage the diapers.”
“Miller Electric has had repackaging events. We’ve sent over 100,000 diapers to them in the last year and a half,” said Rhonda Hannemann, United Way’s community development officer. “Secura also stepped up. We took over 90,000 diapers and they had over 100 volunteers to help. They did it all in a day and a half in April. That was wonderful.”
“Kimberly-Clark has done repackaging and they’ve been very generous with us from the get-go with the diaper bank,” Micke said. “In the first year, they matched diapers up to 10,000.
“Now Thrivent is going to be doing some repackaging. They were the first corporation to do a diaper drive for us.”
Diapers are repackaged in even numbers to distribute to registered families at the St. Joseph Food Program, Salvation Army-Fox Cities, Community 2000 and the Hortonville Community Food Pantry.
Micke said low-income families often don’t have the choice to use cheaper cloth diapers. Most day care facilities require disposable diapers and many laundromats prohibit washing diapers in their machines for sanitary reasons.