Our Story
Diaper Bank of NC envisions a state where dignity, health, and quality of life are viewed as rights, not privileges.
Our mission is to increase awareness of and access to essential hygiene items to promote dignity, health, and quality of life for the people of North Carolina.
Integrity
We treat everyone – our families served, partners, staff, volunteers, and stakeholders – with grace, dignity, and respect while working with integrity, transparency, consistency, and intention to build trust in the community.
Mindful decision making
We are grounded in research and data to guide decision-making while remaining agile and creative in our daily problem-solving.
Justice seeking
We have a responsibility to address systemic racism that harms communities of color in pursuit of social justice, health justice, and equity.
Ensuring that families with babies and children living with poverty have an adequate supply of diapers.
Improving access to personal hygiene products and other basic necessities to remove barriers to education, employment, or personal fulfillment.
Distributing basic needs through community partners in order to encourage access to their services and programs, thereby empowering people to become self-sustaining and develop their full potential.
Enhancing community understanding that access to basic personal hygiene is integral to physical and mental health, education, employability, and quality of life and to raise awareness that these needs are not being met for families living with poverty.
Advocating for policy reform so that diapers and period products are included in the definition of and provision for the basic human needs of families.
Creating a diaper bank model that can be shared, replicated, and adopted by all counties in North Carolina.
Our History
While fostering her now-adoptive son, Michelle Old was watching him experience severe diaper rashes. The infections were so bad that he would end up in the hospital 3-5 times a month on IVs trying to help his body heal from the infections. Even though Old was changing his diaper 20 – 30 times a day, she could not stop the infections from taking over, causing her son to be extremely ill and in pain. As her son started to heal, Michelle started to wonder about parents who were not able to grab that next diaper to help their babies stay clean, dry, and healthy and knew there was no assistance for these families to do so. She became obsessed with the idea of helping others with the very basic need of a clean diaper.
In October 2012, Michelle came home from another long weekend at the hospital with her son and decided she wanted to start a diaper bank in North Carolina. At first, it seemed like a daunting task with 3 children, one of them ill, but she sat down and put together a plan, set a tight family budget, and began to focus on covering babies bottoms across the state.
In January 2013, Old formed the Diaper Bank of NC with the hopes of providing 50,000 diapers in her community within the year. The Diaper Bank now distributes over 7.5 million diapers a year state-wide, with branches in the Triangle, Charlotte, Greater Triad, and Lower Cape Fear Region.
Now with 3 healthy children, Old has made it her life’s work, along with her team, the help of hundreds of amazing volunteers, and the generosity of our community to address the issue of diaper need and distribute dignity across North Carolina.
Our First Diaper Drive 2013
