Disposable diapers are a costly parental expense. Before Megan Fischer, founder of Sweet Cheeks Diaper Bank, ventured into the nonprofit sector, she was a young mother juggling a full-time job and raising two young children.
After bearing the brunt of diaper costs herself, Fischer learned government assistance doesn’t cover diapers. Funds from federal assistance programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, and Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, cannot be used to purchase diapers, according to the National Diaper Bank Network.
The realization led Fischer to create Sweet Cheeks, a Cincinnati-based diaper bank that partners with local social service agencies to provide low-income families with diapers.
For the second year in a row, Sweet Cheeks partnered with confection manufacturer Perfetti van Melle in Erlanger with a goal to prepare over 500,000 diapers and 10,000 feminine hygiene kits for the company’s annual Community Day, which was held Tuesday.
“To do something of this scale not only helps amplify our message, but we are knocking out months of volunteer work in four days,” Fischer told LINK nky.
Instead of spending the day packaging Airheads and Mentos, Perfetti van Melle’s distribution facility employees in Erlanger packaged diapers and feminine products.
In total, the company projects that over 600 employees will contribute nearly 2,600 service hours over nine days in June through September for their annual “Season of Service,” according to a press release. Additionally, Perfetti van Melle also donated $90,000 to Sweet Cheeks.
“The effort that our employees are putting in here are really helping to support families in need in the area,” said Sylvia Buxton, CEO of Perfetti Van Melle North America.
Packaging includes unboxing pre-existing diaper packs, consolidating the loose diapers with saran wrap, and re-packaging them with the Sweet Cheeks branding. Sweet Cheeks accepts all diaper brands.
“They (Perfetti van Melle employees) are doing exactly what we would do with wrapping sessions in our warehouse which is packaging diapers into bundles of 25,” Fischer said. “Each child gets two bundles a month, 50 diapers, and our partner agencies order for their clients.”
Last year, five Perfetti Van Melle teams wrapped and processed approximately 466,200 diaper packs during a Community Day event.
