CommuniCare Health Centers held its Fifth Annual Diaper Drive on Friday in Davis from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Davis Community Clinic.
The purpose behind the event was to accumulate enough diapers to provide one month of supplies for each newborn whose mother is a patient at the Davis Community Clinic. Through the diaper drive and the resulting donations, CommuniCare Health Centers seek to relieve the some of the costs associated with purchasing diapers for a newborn.
“Community support has been really good. People bring diapers and they also have written checks for us so it has been a really great community effort and makes a difference for people,” said Jean Mackin, the prenatal program administrator at the CommuniCare Health Center.
Mackin explained that once people drop off their donations, the diapers are then distributed to the mothers who are patients at the clinic. She said that it is the goal of the clinic to provide each mother with at least one box of diapers to help jump start their journey into motherhood.
According to Mackin, about 580 mothers give birth at the clinic each year, and providing for all of them is a “hardy goal” — as a newborn can use up to 200 diapers a month, averaging out to at least one large box of diapers per month.
“Families are very appreciative,” Mackin said. “[Patients] come back after their babies have been born and ask for more diapers.”
Kristie Elfen, a new grandmother, expressed her support for the event and revealed how a newborn goes through diapers quite quickly. Supplying the mother with diapers has a positive financial impact on new mothers.
Ashley Delain, a new mother, said her newborn child tends to go through diapers quite quickly and she prefers to use cloth diapers instead of disposable ones.
“I think that [cloth diapers] tend to be more environmentally friendly,” Delain said.
Although she uses cloth diapers she said her newborn is growing quite quickly and supplying her child with diapers has been challenging financially.
Although the Fifth Annual Diaper Drive event is now over, the Davis Community Clinic, located at 2051 John Jones Road, accepts donations all year.
Graphic by Jennifer Wu
