If you stopped by the Holly Creek lobby anytime in the last few days, you likely noticed the growing diaper mountain near the concierge desk. As reported on CBS4, residents and team members donated just over 12,700 diapers for families struggling during the pandemic. The Holly Creek diaper donations were headed up by resident Pat VanBramer in honor of Valentine’s Day. Donors added baby diapers to their normal grocery deliveries/lists and placed them outside apartment/cottage doors or delivered them to the front desk. On the 22nd, all donations were taken to the Rocky Mountain Diaper Depot, where they will go a long ways to help Denver-area families.
Bill Youmans, who started the Rocky Mountain Diaper Depot in 2014 and still runs the program out of his home with wife Joan, explained that “Nobody thinks about the other half of the food cycle. There’s lots of places you can get food in Denver, but what do you do when you’ve fed the baby, and they have to go in a couple hours?”
Not only are diapers key for a baby’s health and happiness, but that baby’s mother can’t leave the baby at a daycare service without a diaper. If she can’t use daycare, “then the mom can’t go to an interview, a job or school. It’s key for her success too.”
A recent Denver Post article on the situation opened VanBramer’s eyes to this need and how COVID-19 has exacerbated it in recent months.
“People focus on helping families get food on the table,” VanBramer added. But with increasingly limited resources, many low-income families can’t afford diapers either.
Youmans added, “The need is everywhere, not just where people would expect it to be. A lot of young families lost their jobs and have to decide how to reallocate resources.”
The Diaper Depot has distributed nearly a million diapers over the past seven years to various partners in the metro area such as the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless and The Gathering Place.
“Pat is so well-organized — she’s incredible,” Youmans shared. “We rely on the generosity and coordination of others… it never fails to amaze me how good people are when they realize the need.”
