Talk about a load - a truckload of diapers that is. Mayor Ken Tedford and Ryan Swirzcek pulled up to the Diaper Drive organized by Briana Biagi and Kimberlee Beeghly of Banner Hospital with a pickup truck bed filled with boxes of diapers. The drive was held on Saturday, December 4 from 12:00 noon until 2:00 p.m. in the Louie's Home Center parking lot.
Mayor Tedford said, “Things like this are what makes our community great. We appreciate these efforts very much.” When asked how it felt for the city to play Santa, he replied with a chuckle, “It feels good, really good. We try to do good things every day. It's nice to be out doing things for people, instead of being in our homes, behind closed doors, and away from people. Last night's Tree Lighting is a great example of that, and it along with the September 11 ceremony are the most favorite things we do. You ladies are doing a great thing out here today, so thank you.”
Biagi described how the idea came about for their Diaper Drive. “I had attended a Women in Leadership virtual conference staged in Arizona where the event's proceeds were being donated to the Arizona Diaper Bank. The diaper bank did a presentation about the hardship families were facing which has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. When they polled their families, they found one of the biggest needs was diapers. Parents were having to make choices between eating or keeping their babies in clean diapers. And, while they may be able to go without eating sometimes, they cannot postpone changing diapers. Those parents scrounge to afford buying diapers. I asked them how I could help my town and who I could connect with and was directed to the National Diaper Bank Network (https://nationaldiaperbanknetwork.org/). I looked at their Nevada programs, but found only two in Las Vegas, and nothing in Northern Nevada. I started googling 'diapering services' in this area and found no resources in either Fallon or Fernley. So, we decided to make our own. This is our first year, and we are actually hoping to run this event quarterly. We are partnering with Fallon's Care Net Pregnancy Center (https://www.carenetpcc.org/) where we will deliver all of the donated diapers, and they will distribute them to Fallon families in need. So, all donations will stay right here.” When asked how they chose Care Net to partner with, Biagi explained, “Kim reached out to Lucy Carnahan at the Chamber to find an organization that would be a good fit for us, and Lucy connected us with Care Net.”
At the start of the drive, Biagi said, “Our goal is to build a diaper tower today.” And, as those ladies built it, more and more donations came. “We collected 38 cases and 32 packages of new diapers.” Amazing generosity from the community in just two hours. Beeghly added, “We also received $246 in cash donations that we used to purchase some of the boxes in that tower.” The final count of donated diapers on Saturday exceeded 2,100 for Fallon families in need. Quite a load indeed.
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