~Monkeyshiners~: The Diaper Drive (and the Amazing women that made it happen!)

My facebook friends are probably aware I ran a little diaper drive a little while back. In a previous post, I wrote about my time in Honduras, mostly spent at an orphanage called Emanuel Children's Home. When I was there, the Home's policy was not to accept infants and toddlers as the amount of staffing was just not appropriate for such young children (and to be completely honest, was not adequate for older children either!) and there were no extra funds to provide such staff.

There have been amazing changes recently, in great part due to a wonderful woman Vivian who donates her time to act as director of the Home, as well as to people here in the states, especially Bill and Rona who spend so much time raising funds, planning, coordinating and organizing trips and work projects, writing newsletters and doing sooooooo many awesome things to help the Home. I have, unfortunately, not made it back for several years now, and am pretty sure I will barely recognize the place with all its new buildings, programs and children!

One of the biggest changes, and the one that inspired the Diaper Drive, was the construction of the Sala Cuna, the building that houses the infants! Thanks to the aforementioned hard workers and wonderful donations from both the US and Honduras, there is now space for 10 babies, but only enough funds for staffing for 4. This is such an amazing accomplishment and a blessing for these babies; though there are excellent children's homes in Honduras, there are also many with very poor conditions. How wonderful to be able to give babies an amazing home before they suffer through more years of poverty!

The Home currently has 3 babies in the Sala Cuna; disposable diapers in Honduras are expensive and the Home is unable to purchase them for daily use. As many mothers in Honduras do, they buy (by our standards) inexpensive flat fold diapers and pins for at home use, with NO covers. I know that many of you cloth diaper-ers do this at home, but I honestly cannot imagine having to be continually changing diapers as soon as they wet to avoid wet bouncers, exersaucers, swings and carpet!

So I put out a call on my yahoo co-op for diaper fabrics, as well as a few other co-ops I'm a part of as well as on facebook for used cloth diapers to send to those beautiful babies! And to my great surprise, I very quickly got responses! And even greater suprise: I got boxes in the mail! I was honestly flabbergasted that these women would be willing to send hundreds of dollars worth of cloth diapers to a person they'd NEVER EVEN MET! Thank God for their willingness to trust a stranger because those diapers were AMAZING! And while the vast majority were used in excellent condition, some were (or at least appeared to me!) to be new! And one woman sent something that hadn't even crossed my mind (though I use them myself and love them), a HUGE stack of fabulous cloth wipes! Yummy luxurious sherpa, cotton velour and flannel ones that made me want to run out and buy new fabric for my own set! I wish I'd taken some photos before I shipped them away so you could appreciate this wonderful gift, but alas, I didn't.

Rona, however, has sent me a few photos of these beauties in use on the beautiful camara-shy babes!

Lauren (2 year volunteer) and one of the baby girls.

The 2 little girls with Lizzeth Thomas (whose husband is one of the founders of the Home) and Lauren (2 year volunteer).

So much much much thanks to you, lovely ladies, for your wonderful generosity!

And once again, to see more pictures of the beautiful kids at Hogar Emanuel and of the home itself, to support the Home financially (you can make a one time donation, or choose to support a child or staff member monthly), or to find out more information about joining a work group or recieving the monthly newsletter, click here go to the Hogar Emanuel website.

Several of the women have etsy shoppes where you can check out their beautiful handmade items! Click on the shoppe names to check them out! (they did not know when donating that they'd be getting a smidgen of free advertising!) If you make a purchase (or even if you don't) let them know how you heard about them and how much you appreciate their wonderful gift!

Stefanie's shop is called Itty Bitty Bums and she sells wonderful cloth all-in-two diapers and diaper covers, in adorable prints!

Sharon's shop Junktique offers gorgeous handmade Cutie-Patootie diapers as well as patterns and diaper making supplies. (I've seen her seconds and they are fabulous so I can only imagine...)

Gretchen's website is Small Wonders Wipes and she sells the fabulous reusable cloth wipes she donated to the Home along with her diapers (FOUR boxes full!), as well as flannel recieving blankets, and bibs!

Karen does not have a home biz, but was gracious enough to send EIGHTEEN!!! washed but UNUSED Fuzzibuns! I seriously swooned when I opened the box! (Ok, that happened with everyone's donations, but...)

Her daughter does have her own shop called Panhandle Girl for handmade soaps, cremes and lip balm! You can get 3oz soaps in ten yummy scents like Cowgirl Love Patchouli and Hard Candy Peppermint, or purchase it in a slab (12 bars worth!) She also has 2 scents of body creme, lip balm, and 2 options for easy gift giving like the Vinyl Fever Gift Basket below.