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\u201cAs a new mother with your baby wailing in the back, it\u2019s hard for you to drive that long way,\u201d said Merlani Pablo, full-time caregiver. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fortunately, Merlani was enrolled in T\u016bt\u016b and Me\u2019s Home Visiting program and phoned a friend to assist. Sommer, a T\u016bt\u016b and Me Hilo Home Visitor, dropped off extra diapers and helped Merlani and her baby. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf I couldn\u2019t get to the store, maybe this happened once or twice, I asked T\u016bt\u016b and Me if they had extra diapers,\u201d said Merlani. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Merlani is one of more than 100 T\u016bt\u016b and Me \u02bbohana on Hawai\u02bbi Island who benefit from the monthly diaper and wipes distributions made possible through a partnership with the Hawai\u02bbi Diaper Bank, a nonprofit organization aimed to connect these staples for families with young keiki. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is unacceptable that any parent is struggling to provide their child with this basic essential,\u201d said Hannah London, Hawai\u02bbi Diaper Bank Board Chair. \u201cWe see diapers as such a big link for families, you cannot go without them when you\u2019re a parent.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The idea to start up the Hawai\u02bbi Diaper Bank<\/a> evolved when former T\u016bt\u016b and Me Nurse Jessica Histo wanted to donate her son\u2019s unused diapers, but didn\u2019t know anyone who needed them at the time. In a search to find a local place to donate the diapers, Jessica discovered the National Diaper Bank Network\u2014 only to find that Hawai\u02bbi did not have any locations at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t just throw them away,\u201d said Jessica. As a parent of a newborn and nurse specializing in labor and delivery, she knew all too well how precious diapers are and saw value in connecting parents of young keiki with the staple product. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She hosted a local diaper drive with the Association of Women\u2019s Health, Obstetrics, and neonatal nurses during National Diaper Need Awareness week and donated the collected diapers to places like women\u2019s shelters and T\u016bt\u016b and Me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessica\u2019s humble, yet necessary, advocacy work in bridging the diaper need gap caught Hannah\u2019s eyes, who was moving from the mainland to Kona and brought with her experience in nonprofit work, particularly with diaper banks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What started as a simple diaper drive evolved into Hawai\u02bbi\u2019s first diaper bank, established in 2018 by Jessica and Hannah in Kona. Only four years later and the Hawai\u02bbi Diaper Bank already serves over 1,500 keiki on Hawai\u02bbi Island. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat I love about the diaper bank model is that it works with partners who work with families,\u201d said Hannah. \u201cWe have these amazing community partners that can provide families with a more holistic type of service and help so that families don\u2019t feel like they\u2019re just receiving something and then we leave.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Hawai\u02bbi Diaper Bank consciously onboards partners that strengthen families and the household unit altogether so that there is continuous support. Hannah and Jessica work behind the scenes\u2014 they gather the diapers through donations and grants and distribute them to up to 19 community partners who can couple their services with diapers and other basic needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For Merlani, the diaper services were the blessing she didn\u2019t know she needed. With a nine year difference between her newborn and her last child, \u201cit was kind of like starting over again. Your brain forgets how things used to be when you had an infant. So it was really good having T\u016bt\u016b and Me and being able to talk to someone about having a newborn in the house.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n While Merlani\u2019s older sons attended T\u016bt\u016b and Me Traveling preschool years ago, she connected with T\u016bt\u016b and Me\u2019s new Home Visiting program and benefited from the recently added diaper service through Hawai\u02bbi Diaper Bank, which \u201chelped to save money, and time, which is huge when it comes to a growing family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the partnership, Hawai\u02bbi Diaper Bank has distributed nearly 60,000 diapers to PIDF\u2019s T\u016bt\u016b and Me Hawai\u02bbi island families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On average, keiki can use about 8-12 diapers per day, depending on their age. That comes out to about $100 a month. For most families that the Hawai\u02bbi Diaper Bank serves, that cost adds up to more than $1,000 a year, which accounts for up to 14% of the average family’s income<\/a>\u2014 and that\u2019s just for one child. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe aim to cover 50 diapers per child per month to cover that gap,\u201d said Jessica. \u201cWe say about 8-10 extra diapers a week support families so they don\u2019t feel like they\u2019re being stretched or leaving their kid in diapers longer than they need to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/HDB-House-Warming-2-1095x1400.jpg\")
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