Our organization has been working tirelessly to ensure that families out of work due to the COVID-19 shelter in place order have the essentials they need for their babies. Our services are particularly important in this crisis for several reasons.
1. Diapers and wipes are not covered by any government safety-net program such as WIC or Foodstamps.
2. Some families have missed work for 4-6 weeks now. Many have yet to receive unemployment or a stimulus check.
3. We are experiencing a diaper shortage. Diapers are not readily available in all stores, and wipes are almost impossible to find.
4. Families have reported directly to us that they have been forced to reuse diapers on their babies. This can lead to health problems such as UTIs and even staph infections requiring medical attention at a time when we should be staying home.
To get diapers where they are needed most, we formed strategic partnerships with other organizations in our community and distributed over 40,000 diapers over the past 5 weeks. Families in need of diapers can go to Clinics Can Help in West Palm Beach during their business hours to receive diapers and wipes. We partnered with Hospitality Helping Hands to provide diapers and wipes to families at their grocery pickup days. We are also working with the City of West Palm Beach and the West Palm Beach Police Department to identify and serve out of work families in need. Other agencies receiving diapers for their clients specifically include: The Arc of Palm Beach County, Quantum House, ADVA, Grace Fellowship Church, Families First, and Northend RISE.
We want to give a special thank you to the Town of Palm Beach United Way, Clinics Can Help, and Hospitality Helping Hands for helping to fund a large diaper purchase so that we can continue to serve families together. Thank you to Safebound Moving and Storage for helping us move, wrap, and distribute diapers across the county at a moments notice– we so appreciate your flexibility and your dedication to our cause. Thank you to our board member, Courtney Palacios, for so generously donating Rhythm & Hues as a “Diaper Annex” so that we would have a place to wrap and store overflow diapers through the pandemic. Thank you to ESPN West Palm for featuring our board member, Kimberly Gimson, as a Hometown Hero for her work wrapping diapers to end diaper need during this crisis. We also want to thank our individual donors for sending thousands of diapers from our Amazon wishlist, dropping diapers at our events, mailing checks, and donating to our PayPal account. We appreciate every single donation, and we could not make an impact without all of our collective efforts. Thank you!
