Diaper Bank looks to offer more help from its Mt. Pleasant location

Western Pennsylvania Diaper Bank officials are hoping to partner with health care providers at its Mt. Pleasant location to bring additional services to those in need.

Co-founder Cathy Battle said the coronavirus pandemic has and continues to upend many lives, leaving some families without the ability to access health care.

“We see that there’s a need because if you’re out of work you don’t have health benefits,” she said.

And sometimes it can be a choice of going to work or taking a child to the doctor, said Anna Joyner, outreach coordinator at the Mt. Pleasant location. Plus, transportation and finding money for gas or insurance co-pays can be issues.

“We do get a lot of working families that come in who often have to make those choices,” she said.

The Western Pennsylvania Diaper Bank has been in operation since 2012. The nonprofit partners with other social service agencies to get diapers to families and has expanded to include products for menstruation and adult incontinence.

Battle, who founded the bank with her husband Phillip, said the group has distributed more than two million diapers so far in 2021. It has far surpassed the figure for 2020 during the height of the pandemic when 1.3 million diapers were given out. In 2019, the group gave away about 500,000 diapers, she said.

Since then, the prices of diapers have risen about 14%, said Battle and Joyner. Nine families picked up diapers at the Mt. Pleasant location, which opened in 2019, on Thursday for multiple children. Each child gets 50 diapers at a time.

There has been an increase in requests for menstruation and adult incontinence products, too, Battle said.

“All of them are basic needs that there’s no government assistance for,” she said. “These are things people have to have.”

The Mt. Pleasant location is open Thursdays and Fridays for pickups and other organizations around the region have supplies. To find one near you, visit wpadiaperbank.org/partner-agencies or call 724-691-3031. For ways to donate, visit wpadiaperbank.org.