Strengthening system partnerships through collaborative investments in diaper distribution program
Meeting families’ concrete basic needs, especially diapers, is a high priority for First 5, our community partners, and families with young children. With that in mind, for the first time, we are partnering with the Alameda County Social Services Agency (ACSSA) and contributing nearly $500,000 each calendar year, from January 2025 to December 2027, to…
Meeting families’ concrete basic needs, especially diapers, is a high priority for First 5, our community partners, and families with young children.
With that in mind, for the first time, we are partnering with the Alameda County Social Services Agency (ACSSA) and contributing nearly $500,000 each calendar year, from January 2025 to December 2027, to support additional diaper kit distributions to families with young children experiencing diaper need in our county. These kits include both diapers and baby wipes.
The Collaborative Diaper Distribution Program will be administered by SupplyBank.org and funded by ACSSA, First 5, Alameda County Health (ACH), and the Alameda County Probation Department (ACPD) for a total $5.8 million investment over three calendar years. This is the first time First 5 is using its funding resources to leverage equal contributions from three sister county agencies in support of a countywide program to meet the concrete needs of families with young children in our county.
Our total $1,450,000 contribution to the Diaper Distribution Program will complement our current investments in Help A Mother Out’s diaper distributions to our Neighborhoods Ready for School grantees and Youth Uprising by allowing us to support other community partners who have clients in need of diapers, including Family Resource Centers, WIC sites, and Resource and Referral agencies.
Neighborhoods Ready for School grantees have been distributing diaper kits to families in the community since 2020, and First 5’s investments in the HAMO diaper program in the current fiscal year will help distribute more than 6,000 diaper kits to families. In 2022, SupplyBank.org and First 5, through our Neighborhoods Ready for School initiative, partnered to identify 13 neighborhood-based organizations in Alameda County with a diaper resource gap to serve as distribution partners in SupplyBank.org’s Diaper Bank and Basic Needs program.
ACSSA, ACH, ACPD, and First 5 are now partnering to collaboratively fund the continuation and expansion of SupplyBank.org’s Diaper Distribution Program in Alameda County, which is expected to provide a minimum of 15 million diapers and 37 million baby wipes to families in need over the term of the contract. Taken together, these deep and coordinated investments, in addition to First 5’s continued policy advocacy on diaper needs, demonstrate First 5’s intentional efforts to work with system partners to build a more robust, equity-centered early childhood system that meets the basic needs of families and young children.
“Uninterrupted access to diapers is critical for families with diaper needs,” said Liz Gregor, Program Administrator for Neighborhoods Ready for School. “This programming wouldn’t be possible without the perseverance and advocacy efforts of our partners at Supplybank.org and HAMO, combined with the on-the-ground labor provided by the committed staff at our neighborhood-based CBOs, who expertly coordinate the complicated logistics of getting diapers to families.”
Learn more about diaper needs in Alameda County and our prior partnership with SupplyBank.org.
