United Way of Mid Coast Maine announced earlier this month that it will pass oversight of its decade old diaper drive to Midcoast Maine Community Action.
According to a press release by United Way, the Diaper Project has been a resource for family-serving nonprofit organizations, providing thousands of diapers to agencies across the Midcoast. The project collects diapers and funds to purchase diapers through drives held at businesses and organizations.
MMCA wants to distribute at least 75,000 diapers in the Midcoast region next year. MMCA President and CEO Claire Berkowitz said if a family receives 25 diapers through the project, they could serve around 3,000 children and families with the donated diapers. These donations are meant to supplement a family’s diaper supplies, but aren’t intended to be the only source.
“MMCA is well positioned to continue the Diaper Project’s mission and ensure families throughout the Midcoast have access to this critical resource,” said Nicole Evans, executive director of United Way.
According to Berkowitz, United Way focuses on supporting the partner agencies in the region, but the Diaper Project is a direct service to the community. United Way decided the initiative would better fit MMCA, a nonprofit working with young families and children across the Midcoast.
Berkowitz said MMCA receives a federal community services block grant of $275,000, an anti-poverty measure used to better serve low-income families. The nonprofit uses these resources and fundraising sources such as physical diaper donations.
“It’s a grant that allows us to look at our community needs and then respond with either programs or services to our community,” Berkowitz said.
“Diapers are a critical need for families both for the health and well-being of their child but also for the economics of their family in terms of children needing to be in a child care settings where cloth diapers can’t be managed, so you need to have disposable diapers to be in childcare or daycare setting,” Berkowitz said.
Babies use up to 12 diapers daily, costing families up to $1,200 annually. Some resources, such as the Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program and the Women, Infants, and Children programs, are used to supplement the purchase of diapers for families struggling to make ends meet.
However, families using SNAP do not rely on it with the cost of diapers, and according to the National Diaper Bank Network, 71% of mothers in Maine’s workforce have infants, with most childcare facilities requiring parents to provide diapers for their child or children.
“These households struggle to survive and make hard choices on how to pay bills and put food on the table,” Berkowitz said.
The burden of purchasing diapers on household budgets in the area is sizable, Berkowitz said in an email to The Times Record. At least 9,238 households, or 38% in the Midcoast, cannot meet their basic needs. Single-female-headed households with young children represent most of those households living paycheck-to-paycheck or in poverty, with percentages being 65% in Sagadahoc County, 72% in Lincoln County, and 64% in Cumberland County, according to the website United For Alice.
MMCA is hosting a Diaper Drive on Monday, Nov. 25, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 34 Wing Farm Parkway in Bath. Residents can drop off diapers, including open packages and wipes. The collection of diapers and donations to purchase diapers will be one phase of the Diaper Project’s transition to MMCA.
Volunteers repackage the diapers and distribute them to local organizations that support local families. Distribution of the diapers will begin on Monday, February 3, 2025, across the Midcoast region in northern Cumberland County in Brunswick and distributed through Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program in Brunswick. The nonprofit also wants to partner with Mid Coast Hunger Prevention to help store some diapers.