Colorado Nonprofit Needs Help With Helping Struggling Parents
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) - Hardships brought by 2020 has forced Coloradans to reach out to each other on social media pages -- asking for help with food and household supplies. Nonprofits collecting baby supplies are seeing record demand for diapers.
"Disposable diapers are just that, they're meant to be disposed of, after they're soiled," Morgan Seibel, WeeCycle's Executive Director said.
Seibel and her sister started WeeCycle nonprofit 12 years ago, and she's seen low inventory before, but never a demand like this.
"Families, when they don't have enough diapers, unfortunately they are reporting reusing those diapers or using plastic bags or other items," she said.
WeeCycle collects not only diapers, but gently used items, such as strollers and car seats. They say everything, like formula, is flying off the shelves. Diapers, however, move quick because on average a 12 month old goes through 12-15 diapers a day.
"Last year we distributed 237,000 diapers in the whole year, and our original goal in 2020 was to distribute 300,000 diapers. We've now done over 1.1 million diapers," she estimated.
That means some families are possibly having to decide whether to buy food, or diapers.
"There's reports of them crying prior to having to go to the bathroom because they'll know what's coming, and essentially once a baby has a diaper rash when they have to go to the bathroom it burns, it hurts."
WeeCycle has also struggled during this time. COVID-19 shut down many of their fundraising efforts.
"For many of the families that WeeCycle serves they're your frontline workers, food service workers, really people that have been exponentially hard," she said.
Seibel is worried, even with a vaccine soon, it will still take much longer for people to get back on their feet.
"Last we were serving 1,000 children a month, this year we're serving over 700 children a week," Seibel added.
LINK: WeeCycle
