Babies Need Bottoms – and WNC’s diaper bank needs you

Chris Worthy
·5 min read
3

A package of diapers can mean hope and help for struggling families. It means parents can do their jobs, babies can go to childcare, and toddlers can grow without a list of concerns that come from not being changed frequently enough. A simple gift trickles down to more stable employment and a more secure life.

Babies-Need-Bottoms
Babies-Need-Bottoms

“The bare minimum should be that all children can be clean, dry and healthy and can be in a clean diaper and be changed when they need it,” Meagan Lyon Leimena said.

That’s the mission of Babies Need Bottoms, a nonprofit diaper bank serving Western North Carolina. Leimena serves as the organization’s co-executive director and an advocate for making sure that very basic need is met.

The numbers are astounding. Nearly half of all families in the United States experience diaper need, according to a 2023 assessment. Diapers are expensive and babies use a lot of them – as many as 12 each day for infants. And if families are already struggling, the issue is magnified.

“If you receive WIC (Women, Infants and Children) or Supplemental Nutrition Program or SNAP, which is food assistance, you cannot use those dollars to purchase diapers,” Leimena said. “You cannot use your Medicaid dollars, if that's how you get your insurance, for anything outside of a special healthcare diagnosis.”

Healthy baby or toddler? You’re on your own. And when you do buy diapers, they are subject to sales tax. Babies Need Bottoms is helping to bridge the gap and help little ones have what they need.

Babies Need Bottoms
Babies Need Bottoms

“We're sort of what you might think of if you think of a food bank,” Leimena said. “These resources get collected and then redistributed based on needs. That's what we're doing with diapers, wipes, rash cream, and some other infant hygiene supplies as we have them, but those are the main resources that we get out into the community. We use an evidence based model.”

The partnership model means Babies Need Bottoms distributes those hygiene supplies to community organizations and partners throughout the region, which then distribute the items to families in need.

“We do that to support the existing resources in the community, to stretch the organizational budgets of our partners, and to hopefully make sure that folks who need assistance get as many services or resources in one place as possible,” Leimena said. “If you need help with diapers, you probably need help with other things, too.”

Babies Need Bottoms has more than 75 partners now. To help meet the great diaper need, Leimena said people first have to know it exists. The community needs to know that families often do not have enough diapers to keep their children healthy and clean.

“There's tons of negative health consequences for children and so many psychosocial consequences for parents,” she said. “It's harder for parents to work. When they don't have diapers, they miss school or work days if they can't take their children to childcare, because you have to have diapers to attend childcare. Nobody wants babies sitting in dirty diapers or parents having to choose between feeding their kids or diapering them. Folks can donate their dollars, they can donate diapers, and they can donate their time as a volunteer.”

Volunteers help bundle diapers by size, so families can get the same number each time and Babies Needs Bottoms can count how many are going out to community partners. Those volunteers wrap bundles at home or at the warehouse.

Monetary donations stretch each dollar because the organization can buy diapers in bulk, which is cheaper than buying retail. But if your baby moves up in size, Babies Need Bottoms can take open packages of diapers. Wipes and rash cream must be new and unopened. The organization also has a small cloth diapering program and can accept new or gently used cloth diapering supplies.

Each diaper bundle is an investment in a healthy family.

Babies Need Bottoms
Babies Need Bottoms

“It prevents health problems down the road,” Leimena said. “It keeps kids from getting fussy and irritable. It prevents interrupted sleep, which as a parent is so precious. To think that your kiddo is not sleeping through the night because they are in a soaking wet diaper and they've got diaper rash and they're uncomfortable –it's punitive for everybody. Baby suffers and mom, dad, caregivers who care for that baby suffer.”

  • If your family needs diapers, please start by calling 2-1-1. You can receive a list of diaper distribution partners and learn how to obtain other resources and support in the community.

  • If you can volunteer, the biggest ongoing volunteer project is diaper wrapping. Babies Need Bottoms follows National Diaper Bank Network best practices of providing diapers bundles, and volunteers help prepare diapers so they are ready to go out to partners. There are also opportunities to pick up diapers from community collection boxes, to host diaper drives, and to help partners picking up diapers from the warehouse. Learn more at babiesneedbottoms.org.

  • To donate diapers in the community, collection boxes are located at:

  • Asheville Museum of Science (43 Patton Ave.)

  • Homegrown Families (201 Charlotte St.)

  • Lollipops Ltd. (1950 Hendersonville Road)

  • Once Upon A Child (104 River Hills Road)

  • Sunny Day Play Space (36 Rosscraggen Road, F)

  • The Littlest Birds (inside the Asheville Mall, 3 S. Tunnel Road, G8)

  • For more information about Babies Need Bottoms and diaper need, visit babiesneedbottoms.org, facebook.com/babiesneedbottoms, or instagram.com/babiesneedbottoms.

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Babies Need Bottoms – and WNC’s diaper bank needs you