Among the many things that make me proud to be part of St. Paul’s is the ministry of the Diaper Bank. In fact, when I came for the first interview with the vestry, they sent me home with a Diaper Bank T-shirt. But I was far from understanding the scope of its work and the need that motivates it. Since then, I’ve learned a lot!

These are things you probably already know, because of course, you have been the main supporters of the DB all along. But these are some of the things I’ve learned:

• Safety net programs do not cover diapers – not food stamps, not WIC, not Medicare.
• In order to leave a child in day care, six to eight disposable diapers must be in the child’s diaper bag.
• Public laundromats do not allow the washing of cloth diapers. This includes community laundry rooms in apartment complexes.
• Many disabled babies and children continue to need diapers as they become adults.
• Adult diapers are costly, and many of our elders with very limited incomes need incontinence supplies in order to go out in public even for simple errands.
• And the list goes on…

The St. Paul’s Diaper Bank Partnership was run completely by faithful volunteers for the first four years of its existence. By the time I arrived on the scene, it was clear to everyone that in order to continue, let alone grow, the DB needed a paid director. We were most fortunate to snag, corral, and cajole Phyllis Mueller, a retired Presbyterian minister with vast non-profit experience, to take on this role. The wisdom (and sheer good luck) of hiring her is evident in more ways than I can count, including the great success of the first county-wide Diaper Bank Benefit Auction last October.

The DB now distributes close to 250,000 diapers to our partner organizations. That’s a quarter-of-a-million diapers! And that’s only about half of the number requested. And all this distribution is organized and coordinated by our incredibly faithful volunteers: Terry Jaworski, Bev Jannotta, Al Robel, and Judy Robel (who’s the treasurer).

This devoted group has met with the vestry with an important proposal: that the Diaper Bank form a separate 501c3, giving it the status of being its own not-for-profit organization. The major benefit is that the DB would become eligible for some of the larger grants that exclude churches and religious organizations. In other words, this is the next step in its development. It simply cannot even begin to meet the needs of this community, let alone expand, without doing this.

It is a virtual certainty that the vestry will approve and support this request. The Diaper Bank will present a full report of its 2013 work and its hopes for the future at the Annual Parish Meeting on January 26, 2014. Meanwhile, we wanted to give you a heads-up.

My feelings about this are a lot like the way I felt when each of my children went off to college. They were growing up, leaving home, and moving toward independence. And yet, they would always be mine. So I saw them off with a mixture of sadness and joy. It looks like it’s time for the Diaper Bank leave home and become independent. But it will always be ours. After all, St. Paul’s birthed it, and that’s something that will never change. There is good reason for you to be proud of that!

Faithfully,