Make the Most of Awareness Week, Using Assets You Already Have

By: Lacey Holt, Executive Director of Legacy Parenting Center in Shawnee, OK

National Diaper Need Awareness Week is a great opportunity to educate your community and gain more support. At Legacy Parenting Center we, of course, want to make the most of that week. We realize that our (mighty, but not large) staff is already busy offering vital support to families in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma and surrounding cities. For us, NDNAW is all about making the most of the resources we already have.

Use your resources

You are reading this because you are a member of the National Diaper Bank Network, so take advantage of that! Make use of all the toolkits that NDBN creates around this week. For example, we post more frequently on social during NDNAW. Many of those posts are simply resources that NDBN shares with members, which we then customize to reflect our own branding. We also use social media to thank the many partners who hold diaper drives for us during NDNAW. It is especially fun to drop off candy to a partner and go live with it.

We also make use annually of NDBN’s proclamation toolkit for some great collaboration with Shawnee Mayor Ed Bolt. We have tried arranging the presentation during a city council meeting, but we found we got even more attention when Mayor Bolt visited us at our facility and we livestreamed. (Plus fun photos we could use later for social media promos!)

Diaper drives drive awareness and donations

The centerpiece of NDNAW for us is a community-wide diaper drive. We aim to collect 36,000 diapers during the campaign – about the amount we distribute monthly. We rely on our existing supporters to help us with this heavy lift, while always working to add more. We reach out to businesses, agencies, faith communities and individuals, even ones who may not have actively given in a while. We try to make it easy for these friends, with toolkits, lawn signs, and plenty of information. We tell them there are many ways that they can help: hosting a diaper drive; making a financial donation; or coming to our agency to help package diapers.

This year our goal is to have 60 drop off locations. We are modifying the drive a bit by giving donors the option of dropping off diapers or scanning a QR code to make a financial donation. We’re working on educating our supporters about how cash goes farther, because of our bulk purchasing power through National Diaper Bank Network.

Increasing demand and increasing support

Education is key, because after all the A in NDNAW stands for “awareness.” We partner with local media. We always draw on the statistics NDBN makes available, and we have started adding local data to it. For example, we asked participating Legacy families some of the same questions that appear on NDBN’s Economic Impact Study survey, to get a better picture of how life-changing diapers can be for families in our program.

This intensive week of raising awareness pays off for a long time. For example, one couple that learned about us during NDNAW two years ago continues to come by with a box of diapers every month.

Along with increased support, NDNAW brings increased demand as families learn that help with diapers is available. Our motto ever since the pandemic hit in 2020, “We are fun and flexible.” Families can sign up for emergency assistance and get diapers from us four times a year, no questions asked. If they enroll in our parenting classes, they can get diapers and other resources twice a month. Most families who begin by getting emergency assistance end up taking classes, which is a win for our mission of building stronger, healthier families.

Supporting your local diaper bank and raising awareness

In keeping with our guiding principle of making the most of the resources we have, we are moving our major fundraiser, Trivia & Tapas, which we typically schedule for November, to the Thursday of NDNAW. The people and organizations who support NDNAW are the same who support our annual trivia night. This way we concentrate our outreach efforts – and everyone gets to celebrate the success of NDNAW. 

We’re looking forward to another great year of raising awareness and collecting thousands of diapers to help babies in our community stay clean, dry, and healthy.