There’s a middle space between poverty, low income and affording a quality lifestyle – and many moms in Essex County of New Jersey are here.  

“In Essex County the max allowed income for SNAP for a family of 3 is $3,204,” said Janien of ModestlyCover Diaper Bank of Essex County. “Most of the moms are over that amount, but less to qualify for assistance – so, they struggle with providing (diapers and wipes) for their family.”

“Most of the moms I serve work, but during inclement weather or other emergencies they cannot get to the bank for diapers,” she added, “which caused a struggle to keep babies clean and dry.”

Janien came across Jake’s Diapers at the National Diaper Bank Network conference and was “motivated to think outside the box,” to solve this problem. With “parallel” missions, Janien said our collaboration would help the women in her community with options, something they thought they never had when diapers were concerned.

Together, we decided to co-host a cloth diaper class virtually, to provide cloth diaper kits for emergencies when the families can’t access diapers and provide education on their use.

“We serve an urban population who were never introduced to cloth diapers, and we thought it would be nice to introduce the concept as an emergency kit,” Janien said. “I absolutely loved co-hosting this event with Katie because I learned some things just in case I have a mother who chooses cloth over disposable. I also got to ask questions the attendees didn’t think of. So,

it was a win-win straight across the board.”

Many participants told Janien the kits were a great idea and would help. 

“They have been caught without diapers on several occasions and now are very excited to have a kit handy to use,” Janien said. “I overheard someone saying she ‘‘can’t wait until she runs out of disposables so she can try her skills at the cloth diapers.’”

About Our National Efforts: Jake’s Diapers provides reusable options to members of the National Diaper Bank Network to supplement their work with single-use items. We also maintain partnerships with a network of organizations throughout the United States to support their efforts to help others live clean, healthy and prosperous lives. In late 2018, we also launched a direct aid diaper loan program for individual applicants in the U.S.

Make your impact today! A donation of $16 solves diaper need for moms and babies like the ones in our story.