Distributing Dignity Across North Carolina
Michelle Schaefer, CEO and founder of Diaper Bank of North Carolina (DBNC), met her youngest son when he was a day old. For the first year and a half of his life, he experienced extremely severe diaper rashes that left him ill and in pain. Despite changing his diaper 30 to 40 times a day, Schaefer could not keep the infections at bay. As her son began to heal, she found herself thinking about parents who could not simply reach for the next diaper to keep their babies clean, dry, and healthy. Diaper need is more than a financial stressor, children without enough clean diapers experience higher rates of serious infections, and most childcare programs require parents to provide an adequate diaper supply. Without diapers, children cannot attend daycare or preschool, which can jeopardize their parents’ ability to work, attend school, or maintain financial stability.
Public safety net programs like WIC and SNAP do not cover the cost of diapers, leaving many families to make impossible choices between purchasing diapers and other essentials. Seeing this gap, Schaefer became determined to help meet this most basic need. What began with a single laundry basket of diapers has now grown into four warehouse locations distributing essential hygiene products through trusted nonprofit partners across North Carolina.
