We had a great result from our Seattle area diaper drive events – we collected about 10,000 diapersto benefit WestSide Baby in West Seattle and Eastside Baby Corner in Issaquah. We approached the diaper drive with a true grassroots communication on “How You Can Help” with information on how to host a diaper drive. My goal here was to get all my friends (and their friends) to reach out to their schools, community organizations, and businesses to collect diapers. Although I didn’t get lots and lots of participation, my own kids’ schools participated with great results — so I plan to build on this (see below). In addition, we had a number of great events, all contributing to the overall number with varying degrees of success. I thought I’d share what we did and how we think we’ll continue our efforts in the Seattle area.
The Official Diaper Drive. We were very fortunate to have three The Little Gym locations (West Seattle, Bellevue, and Issaquah) dedicate their summer Open House events to be diaper drives. The Little Gym helped to promote the events and each location collected between 850 – 950 diapers. We had about 40 kids at each location, with most of the attendees being members of The Little Gym. The day of the event was the first sunny day in 3 weeks, so we think that may have also impacted attendance. The Little Gym staff did a great job of coordinating efforts and staffing the gyms while we obtained door prizes and goodies, promoted the event in our own networks, and showed up to represent HAMO and our great beneficiaries! We had Eastside Baby Corner lead the event in Issaquah, WestSide Baby lead the event in West Seattle, and I led the Bellevue event. This was fun, was great outreach to families, and generated over 2500 diapers. That being said, we put forth a lot of effort to do this! Thanks again to our donors: Booginhead, Deep South Staples, Embrace Activism, Lots to Say Baby, New York Cupcakes, North Star Fine Coffees, ReUsies, The Little Gym, andSugar Rush Bakery.
Mommypreneur Event. I organized a Mommypreneur networking event at WestSide Baby on a Thursday evening. The goal of this event was to promote networking among local Mommypreneurs along with collecting diapers and door prizes for our events. The turnout for this was very disappointing (big thanks to those who attended including Eastside Baby Corner and to WestSide Baby for hosting and Resourceful HR, Steller Solutions, Stroller Strides, and ReUsies) but I would definitely try this again as I think it’s a great market to get the word out about HAMO.
Community Outreach. I put together a flier for all my mommy friends on “How You Can Help.” The flier talked about HAMO and hosting your own diaper drives. I had one friend and two business groups host diaper drives, generating about 1100 diapers. I think this is a great way to promote HAMO and gather diapers.
School Events. As part of the community outreach, I suggested that people contact their kids schools or even just individual classrooms to hold a diaper drive. My son’s kindergarden class alone collected over 300 diapers. The biggest success, though, was that my daughter’s pre-school,Bellevue Montessori School, made the HAMO diaper drive their spring charity event and collected over 3100 diapers! My effort for these school events was minimal – I created a flier for the school or teacher and picked up the diapers at the end – and the results were amazing (in my opinion).
My plan going forward is to reach out to all the pre-schools I can find during the September and October timeframe asking them to consider a HAMO diaper drive as a charity event for their school sometime during the school year. Many of these schools already have some kind of charity drive (i.e. school supplies, canned food, toys) and getting HAMO on their radar early on is important. The families with pre-school age kids are often still buying diapers or have left overs at home, making it really easy for them to participate.
We are also planning to do The Little Gym events again next year as this was a great partnership with a lot of success!
For more information or to participate in future Seattle area HAMO events, contact me atmichelle@equinoxbusinesslaw.com