South Dallas nonprofits join forces to address COVID-19 diaper shortages

Co-published by our media partner, The Dallas Weekly

The line of cars in front of the Park South YMCA stretched along Metropolitan Avenue all the way to Interstate 45, where vehicles waited even on the highway. Another line of cars snaking toward the YMCA backed up for blocks on Malcolm X Boulevard.

The passengers waited, patiently and gratefully, for the diapers and wipes Phillipa Williams and Shawana Carter had amassed. Williams’ nonprofit, I Look Like Love, typically doles out 12,000 diapers during her monthly events at South Dallas WIC locations. She knew the demand would be higher at this one, even before cars began lining up.

“The reality is, the diaper need out there presently is as intense as the toilet paper need,” Williams says.

Dallas County had declared a state of emergency two weeks prior as cases of the novel coronavirus rose. Williams reached out to Carter, whose nonprofit Carter’s House provides children’s clothing and baby items to families from its headquarters at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center. The two women had teamed up previously to host pop-up baby boutiques for single parents, and they decided to face the pandemic head-on in another joint effort.

They turned to Hope Supply, the largest diaper provider in Texas, and requested the maximum monthly allocation. Another six pallets came from World Vision thanks to help from Froswa’ Booker-Drew, the State Fair of Texas vice president of community affairs and strategic alliances, who works with South Dallas nonprofits to build capacity and foster collaboration.

The Friday, March 27 event was supposed to take place from 10 a.m.-1 p.m., but “we started about 9:20 because the crowd was so big,” Carter says. “We were done by 11.”

They distributed more than 15,000 diapers to 300-plus families, with cars still lined up for blocks. As they realized they were about to run out, Williams and Carter began walking along Metropolitan and Malcolm X to let people know.

“They all said, ‘Thank you so much for doing this. Will you do it again?’ I did not encounter anybody who was angry, even when we had to tell them we were out,” Carter says. “For as crowded as it was, for as many people and as long as some of them waited, it was a good day.”

The hardest part, she adds, was not being able to touch anyone. Williams and Carter decided beforehand that it would be a drive-through rather than walk-in event, for everyone’s safety, and “it saved us,” Carter says.

“If you’d been outside the car, I would have hugged somebody,” she says. “Somebody’s always gonna cry, and we always wanna comfort.”

The bleak realities of COVID-19 led Williams and Carter to loop in another partner, Tavian Harris of Arlington-based Seasons of Change, so that families receiving diapers and wipes could sign up for additional services beyond the event.

Harris says she is seeing increased needs among “the working poor — not just those below poverty, but those families making $6 to $10 an hour too much for food stamps. Those who had just gotten on their feet are now coming in struggling.”

The Seasons of Change intake center normally serves up to 25 clients a day; that number is now topping 50. Harris and her staff are helping families set up Medicaid and food stamps through phone calls and Facebook. Their warehouse, normally stocked with furniture, bedding, sheets and other household goods, is “half empty,” she says.

The average Seasons of Change client has four to five children, usually with two to three in diapers, Harris says. The financial strain of COVID-19 means some families can no longer afford their diaper supply, Williams says, and the virus simultaneously is prompting others, who can afford it, to hoard supplies.

“This leaves little for others, creating a culture of anxiety in households that can lead to two things: diaper stretching (or the reuse of a diaper beyond capacity), and child abuse,” she states on the I Look Like Love website.

“The reality is, even under the best of circumstances, sensitivities are naturally going to be more heightened,” Williams says, expressing her concern for children amid their parents’ increased stress. “We know we won’t be able to service everybody, but if we can minimize those two things, then we hopefully can do something for the community.”

All three women are anticipating more needs amid COVID-19 and in its aftermath. Williams and Carter have upped their diaper and wipes inventories to provide for both familiar and new faces. They need help, and are receiving some of it from within the community: Members of a South Dallas church donated diapers after a request made the rounds. A former I Look Like Love client even brought back a large bag of diapers her baby couldn’t use.