Cops, Community Diaper Drive: Hoping To 'Change' Babies' Lives

MADISON, CT — This time last year when Bare Necessities kicked off its annual drive it had 375 babies in need of diapers. Since, in the year of the coronavirus pandemic, there are now 675 infants and toddlers in shoreline towns whose bottoms are in desperate need of covering.

“It’s staggering,” said Tina Bascom, Bare Necessities president. When Patch met with Bascom last January, little did we both know what was to come.

“We never imagined what would happen and we had to get creative quickly, but we’ve never stopped distributing diapers and wipes since day one of COVID. When everything was closed, we kept working,” Bascom said.

She explained that since last winter and spring, Bare Necessities would piggy-back off of drive-through donation and food distribution sites.

But it’s been hard and the need is great. Just last week Bascom stood outside for four hours at a drive-through distribution in the cold and snow to distribute diapers and wipes to families in need.

“It was a lot of work, but we’re just doing what we have to do to help these families,” she said.

Hundreds and hundreds of them from Old Saybrook to East Haven and every shoreline town in between.

Bare Necessities, with an office in Clinton, operates out of its Orchard Park Road warehouse in Madison. Inside the warehouse before the drive last year, the shelves were close to empty. By the end of last years’ drive, Bare Necessities had collected 29,650 diapers and 36,431 wipes and around $500 in donations. Which Bascom was thrilled with she said at the time. But this year, with the need having increased by more than double due in large measure to the pandemic the need is so much greater.

“We really need all the help we can get this year,” Bascom said.

The annual diaper drive would not be as successful as it has been in recent years without the help of local police departments. Every station from state police Troop F in Westbrook to the East Haven police department is diaper central. It’s not called the Shoreline Law Enforcement Diaper & Wipe Drive for nothing.

Connecticut State Police Troop F, Clinton Police Department, Madison Police Department, Guilford Police Department, Branford Police Department, North Branford Police Department and East Haven Police Department are all part of the effort and are all collecting diapers and wipes for the drive.

Bascom said this year, police are “more excited than ever” to be part of the effort. As she said last January, it’s the non-profit’s “biggest and most successful drive” because of law enforcement and the generosity of shoreline residents to make a difference and "eliminate diaper need in the Shoreline Community."

And this year, hoping to receive more donations, Bare Necessities has added different donation options for folks to give from including its Venmo - @Bare-Necessities - for cash donations and its Amazon Wish List for folks to buy directly. Click here to make a diaper and/or wipe donation to Bare Necessities via its wishlist here.

“Every donation matters,” Bascom said.

The drive officially kicks off Feb. 1 and runs through Feb. 15.

Bare Necessities partners with social service agencies and food pantries along the shoreline where its able to supply diapers and wipes to those families that have been identified by the agencies as having a need — . It is the only recognized diaper bank on the Connecticut shoreline. The non-profit gets its support from all its many volunteers, the annual drive, private donations and through grants from "partners" including The Community Foundation of Middlesex County, The Guilford Foundation, and The Westbrook Foundation Essex Savings Bank, and Guilford Savings Bank.

It began its work in 2015 then serving just five families. Now, it serves several hundred.

Diaper Need Facts:

• 1 in 3 families in the USA have a diaper need. 6 – 12 diapers are needed per day for infants/toddlers at an average cost of $100 per month.
• Diapers and toiletries are not covered under safety net programs such as SNAP (food stamps) or WIC (woman, infants and children).
• CT Poverty Statistics: 38% of children under the age of 3 years old live below the poverty level.
• Statistics show that a pregnant mother will go without food in order to purchase diapers for her child. Having to sacrifice one meal has the same negative effects of taking cocaine. By providing diapers to families in need, we hope that a mother will never have to make this decision.
• Children must have a full day’s worth of disposable diapers to attend even government subsidized daycare.