Santa Barbara County’s LEAP Holding Diaper Drive and Fundraiser This Week

This week, September 18-24, is National Diaper Need Awareness Week. Nationally, diapers cost an average of $100 per month, per child. To get an idea of the need for nappies in Santa Barbara County — which had one of the highest poverty rates in California in 2021 — one need look no further than community childcare services. 

Central Coast nonprofit LEAP, formerly known as Isla Vista Youth Projects, knows that need well: After establishing Santa Barbara County’s first and only diaper bank in 2021, the organization now goes through 5,000-7,000 diapers every month for more than 200 children. That’s about $1,400 worth of pull-ups.

“And it’s continuing to go up,” said Lori Goodman, LEAP’s executive director. “We give packs of 20 diapers for each child, twice a month.”

For Diaper Week, LEAP is holding a diaper drive and collecting online donations, but the need for diapers is a year-round thing. Goodman lamented that there are not many accessible options for state grants or federal funding to help with the cost of childcare necessities like diapers. 

“As a leader, I believe that we need to think about what will make a difference and do it, and that the money will follow,” she said, “not to only let grantors or the state decide what’s important to do.”

LEAP provides early childhood care and education to underprivileged families, but its work isn’t confined to the classroom or the changing table. 

Goodman views investing in its families’ futures and well-being as an inseparable aspect of LEAP’s work. That includes the nonprofit’s employees, who, like childcare providers nationwide, are predominantly Black and Brown women, a majority of whom have children in the program.

“Children are a part of families,” she said. “We changed to LEAP — Learn, Engage, Advocate, Partner — because those are all the things we do to help children learn and support and engage families. 

“When I think of engagement, I think about meeting people on equal ground. Not ‘I know what’s best for you,’ but ‘What do you need? How can I be in community with you?’” 

It’s not all feel-good work and cute kids, she added. It’s serious work, “and we need serious policies to change the way we support children and families.”

That includes making sure families don’t have to make the choice between diapers or food. Parents travel to Goleta from all over the county to get their hands on LEAP’s high-demand Huggies, and last year alone, they gave away more than 45,000 diapers. 

“We’ve changed our name, and that is allowing us to leap anywhere in our county where our services are needed,” Goodman said. They are working on opening a third center in Lompoc, and Goodman hopes that they’ll be up and running within the next year.

Community donations have helped with diaper collection and distribution, but they need a couple $1,000 a month to keep the bank stocked, she said. 

“And so this week, we are really hoping people will sign up to make a monthly contribution. Twenty dollars a month would go a long way for keeping us regularly stocked.”

Old Town Coffee in Goleta will be collecting diaper donations for LEAP until Sunday, September 24. To donate to LEAP’s diaper stock online, visit its website: leapcentralcoast.org/diaper-bank.