Free diapers tough to get for families in need

Olivia Abernathy is the minister for community engagement at All Saints Anglican Church on McClellan Road, and one of the big projects she manages is the Diaper Project, which supplies diapers on a monthly basis for families of young children in need but having a hard time paying for them.

Abernathy said she was glad to see the State helping in that effort as the legislature passed a bill in the spring that would make diapers available for parents of children ages 2 and younger, providing 100 diapers per month from participating stores.

That effort began on Aug. 7, but the early stages have shown some kinks need to be ironed out in the process. The program comes from TennCare and CoverKids in which children under 2 are eligible for 100 free diapers per month from approved brands – Huggies and Cuties for now. These diaper allotments can be picked up at participating stores.

“As of the second day of the initiative [Aug. 8], Madison County had one participating store and another was added to the list of participating stores but when parents went there to get their allotment, the staff there hadn’t been made aware of their being a part of the program,” Abernathy said. “And there are a lot of parents of young children in need in Madison County.

“But it’s not like the two participating locations in Madison County are just helping Madison County residents. Other counties are having problems rolling this out too, so when another county’s services aren’t available, more times than not, those people will go to Jackson hoping to receive those services.”

Abernathy said the position of the program at the church was to send parents of younger children to the participating stores first to conserve their own reserve and also focus their efforts on helping parents with older children.

“When this was announced, we were like, ‘That’s great. They’re doing this, so we can alter what we’re doing to complement what they’re doing to increase the impact of both,’” Abernathy said. “But so far, it’s not working.”

According to District 73 State Representative Chris Todd, he’s looking into what’s going on with the program and how to get the glitches fixed.

Abernathy is hopeful Todd or someone within the State can get it fixed because a high number of families are in need of the help.

“It’s a tough situation for me when a mom or family we’ve been helping burns gas to go to one of these stores to come up with nothing,” Abernathy said. “And then they call me asking if we can help because they don’t get paid for a few more days, but they’re still 15 miles from home with six miles of gas in their tank and no diapers for their babies.

“These families need help when people say they will help them.”

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news