Last Saturday, I helped out with a diaper drive at Catholic Charities. Despite the push by Dr. Hill to get more people to sign up, it ended up being just me, GRF Magdala, and one other Rose resident who went. Nevertheless, we had a good time doing what we could. Liddy, from Catholic Charities, was kind enough to let us in and meet her daughter August. We made our way into the basement, which was surprisingly big, and filled with lots of clothes and other donated items. While comfortable, the low exposed ceiling along with some small strange noises from time to time were a little creepy.
For the diaper drive, we divided up donated diapers into bags that would be handed out to low income parents once every two months. The number of diapers given out were based on the size, but even with the largest number of 52 size 1 diapers, we realized that this isn’t enough to keep up with an infant’s needs. Liddy mentioned that they also help low income parents by informing them of where else they could get free diapers.
Despite the fact that we only had three people, we got through over 4,000 diapers and pull-ups within 3 hours. Honestly, it was one of the most productive Saturday mornings I’ve had in a while, and it really was to help benefit those who need some support. While I think people may not have signed up to help because it was a Saturday morning and was supposed to be a relatively long event, I do think that people missed out. I would definitely do it again or even help out with other activities they need volunteers for. I really encourage other Rose Scholars to be more open minded about even rarely spending a chunk of their weekends to dedicate to some service activity. Who knows, you might learn somethings about diapers you never knew that might come up sometime later in your life.