title
Proclamation declaring Tuesday, September 24, 2019 as “National Diaper Need Awareness Day” in Allegheny County.
body
WHEREAS, 5.9 million babies in the U.S. aged three or younger live in poor or low-income families with one in three mothers unable to provide their children a basic essential for health and hygiene - a clean, dry diaper; and
WHEREAS, disposable diapers cost up to $150 per month per baby with no government assistance and parents cannot take children to day care without diapers preventing them from working or attending school; and
WHEREAS, lack of clean diapers can jeopardize a child’s chance to develop cognitive abilities and language skills normally and contribute to home environments with more tension, less nurturing and possible abuse; and
WHEREAS, there is an estimated need of 77,000 diapers per day for these children in Allegheny County alone; and
WHEREAS, the non-profit Western Pennsylvania Diaper Bank, established in 2012 and based in Pittsburgh’s East End, at present is the only local organization that has addressed this need as its sole purpose and is the only diaper bank in the state west of Harrisburg; and
WHEREAS, the Western Pennsylvania Diaper Bank in following its mission to help ensure that babies in need are clean, healthy, and dry, has, over seven years, distributed more than one million diapers to low-income or poverty level families in Western Pennsylvania through a network of 26 social service agency partners; and
WHEREAS, the Western Pennsylvania Diaper Bank now also provides period supplies to women in need through those agencies as part of the National Alliance for Period Supplies, supporting women’s health and enabling them to go to work and school to break the cycle of poverty; and
WHEREAS, the Western Pennsylvania Diaper Bank envisions a community where all families have an equal opportunity to thrive and joins the National Diaper Bank Network in raising awareness of critical need during National Diaper Need Awareness Week, September 23-29, 2019;
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that I, Allegheny County Council Member Tom Baker, do hereby proclaim Tuesday, September 24, 2019 as NATIONAL DIAPER NEED AWARENESS DAY in Allegheny County, and I call upon our citizens to join with the Western Pennsylvania Diaper Bank in their efforts to ensure that the diaper crisis is solved and every child has a basic essential - a clean, dry diaper.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of Allegheny County to be affixed this 24th day of September 2019.