APRIL NEWS

Make a Difference for Mother’s Day – HappyBottoms needs your help! Please read on

You have been wondering when the first item in our newsletter would solicit your help and now is the time! Mother’s Day is May 13^th! I asked last month if you were thinking about Mom and that may have been too soon – but you see we DO think about Mom all the time at HappyBottoms and Mother’s Day is our largest fundraising campaign to support Mom. I am talking about the Moms who receive our diapers. You cannot imagine how the gift of diapers can help a Mom and her baby.

We make it simple for your to help and you get something in return – so here goes – click right here – and go to our website to donate to HappyBottoms in honor of your Mom or another special woman in your life. Give us the name of the special woman and we put it on our honor roll on our Facebook page and website. We send you a certificate via email to print and give to the Mom you are honoring  and most importantly your donation supports HappyBottoms ability to provide diapers to families in need in KC.

If you want to get your company involved in helping us – please email me – liz@happybottoms.org – as we have a contest for companies who participate where the winning company – as measured by the greatest cumulative donation given – will be recognized by the media and will receive our traveling trophy and a special prize. All who participate will be invited to a special celebration we have planned hosted by Freedom Bank on May 24^th where the winner will be recognized.

You can see our progress on the website as we have a thermometer tracking our overall goal. That goal is $50,000! To those who have already contributed – thank you!

That’s it! The bottom line is we need your help – and yes the pun is intended!

What happened at HappyBottoms in April?

1. 1.       We added a new partner agency. A Simple House of Sts. Francis and Alphonsus picked up their first diapers in April.
2. 2.       We provided 36,047 diapers to kids through our partner agencies bringing our total diapers distributed in 2012 to 105,521.
3. 3.       We held a wildly successful Bottoms Up event thanks to StickSisters in Hawthorne Plaza and brought in $1220.
4. 4.       We got an incredible donation from North American Savings Bank! The generous folks at NASB sent us a check for $7500. We are incredibly thankful to this wonderful organization who understood what HappyBottoms is trying to do after reading the article in the KC Star.

Have we got a deal for you – we joined Dealbug thanks to 810 Sports Radio! Click here to go to their site and direct $1 of your coupon purchase to HappyBottoms. The more coupons you buy the more dollars we get! Here is how it works.

On the top of the page and over to the right you will see the words “Join or Login.”  When you land on the site and click “Join”, you can subscribe with your email address and to start receiving deals in Kansas City.  When you purchase the deal, a drop down menu of charities will appear. We ENCOURAGE you to choose HappyBottoms every time you purchase a deal.  The more you shop – the more HappyBottoms earns! Click here to start dealing and supporting HappyBottoms today!

 Did you know national volunteer week was  April 15-21? We did and would like to recognize  all our outstanding volunteers without whom our diapers would not make it out the door of our warehouse. Thanks for the moving, stacking, counting and sorting! And oh by the way – if you volunteer for HappyBottoms you get invited to our Mother’s Day celebration too! This month some special recognition goes to:

Chrystal Johnson who helps us with database management and warehouse logistics!

Jodi Danziger who is our Diaper Drive coordinator and Facebook and Twitter guru!

Emily Bengston who helps us with Facebook and works on the featured agencies and drop sites!

Jenni Purvis who has become our Drop Site manager and helped us with our new Google maps!

The Kansas City Junior League who provides wonderful volunteers every month to help with diaper distribution.

Pat Dowey for orchestrating the Bottoms Up event at StickSisters!

Why we need your help.

April was another great month at HappyBottoms. We had more volunteer support including diaper drives and some truly awesome donations – but there is one thing I did not mention earlier. We had two more agencies apply for diapers bring our list of waiting children to over 1100! That is right. These are the number of children who we don’t provide diapers to yet. Why is that? We don’t have the funding.

That is why your donation to the Make a Difference for Mother’s Day fundraiser is so important. Your dollars help us move agencies off our wait list and provide diapers to more kids. So please, click that pink button, make a donation and honor Mom in the process. A mom you don’t even know will thank you for your generosity.

Liz

 P.S. - Don't forget to check our Drives and Events page to see all the great organizations who helped us this month and our upcoming events.

MARCH NEWS

March was Memorable! Can you say front page? HappyBottoms can – just click here to link to the article in the Kansas City Star that appeared on the front page March 28^th! Our sincere thanks to Laura Bauer, the Kansas City Star reporter,  who wrote and researched this article. A huge thanks to her photographer for capturing the great pictures of the children at The Upper Room who receive our diapers. And last but not least thanks to all who made this article possible and all who donate to our cause.

What else happened in March?

1. We distributed our 316,316^th diaper! How do we know? We count every single one! In April with the addition of Operation Breakthrough we will be providing diapers to about 700 children each month and we hope to add another agency to the group. If you follow us you know our wait list of agencies continues to grow. We now have 15 agencies on the waitlist with over 1050 children waiting to receive diapers.
2. We got another donation from the United Way Gifts in Kind Program of over 5000 diapers!
3. Arbor Pharmaceuticals, makers of Pediaderm AF, came through with financial support for us again. This year they donated $10,000! What a wonderfully generous company! They truly understand baby bottoms as they make prescription diaper cream.
4. We have a freelance graphic designer, Courtney Wasson of Busy Bee donating her time and making some terrific new resources to support drives, events and marketing materials. Check out her work at www.freelancebusybee.com – she rocks.
5. We added a new Board Member! Joe Calhoun of Renaissance Financial joined our board and will be our Fundraising Chair. He has already rallied the board to get busy and raise more money to buy more diapers and serve more children. We are excited to have him.
6. We got our new warehouse/processing space ready for action! That means we can bring in groups to help us count sort and repackage open packages of diapers. Want to bring in a group to help? Click here.

They say April showers bring May flowers – but we say April baby showers bring diapers. Would you like to help? How about holding a baby shower for HappyBottoms? We have a new email invite on our website that you can use. Just click here to go to the page. What do you ask your guests to bring? Diapers of course and dollars to buy them. We also need folding tables and chairs for our warehouse as well as pack-and-plays to collect the diapers in. They can all be used. We love repurposing! And don’t forget those open packs that baby has grown out of – we can find babies who need those unused diapers so please don't throw them away.

We are gearing up for Mother’s Day - On April 1^st – it will be 43 days until Mother’s Day. Have you thought about Mom? At HappyBottoms we think about her every day. This year we are launching our biggest campaign yet to get the entire community involved in helping us raise money to provide diapers for babies in the greater Kansas City Metro area. We want businesses and the media to help us. In April we will be reaching out to businesses, individuals and the media to help us “Make a Difference for Mother’s Day” and donate to HappyBottoms in honor of Mom or a special woman in your life. That donation will help a Mom who cannot afford to buy diapers for her  baby. If you give us the name of the woman you are honoring – we will add her to our honor roll on our Facebook page, website and Twitter. If you want to get involved and volunteer  to  Make a Difference click here to contact us. Any size business can participate and we would love every media outlet in KC to pick this up.  Or you can donate right now by clicking on the big pink Make A Difference for Mother’s Day button on our website.

OK – we are Marching on – but before we go – did you know part of the mission of HappyBottoms is to create awareness of the need for diapers for low income families. You may ask why? Frankly because very few people know about it. You see – if they did know, they could not help but want to support our cause. Every baby deserves a clean, dry bottom. Right? Would you reuse a soiled diaper? I am sure you would not. If you are reading this you don’t have to. And guess what – no one else should have to either. You can help us make sure these babies have happy bottoms  by joining us in providing diapers to families in need.

So make your March Memorable and March with us at HappyBottoms!

Liz

FEBRUARY NEWS

Leaping Lizzards

It is Leap Year and HappyBottoms is leaping forward once again to provide diapers to more children in the greater Kansas City Metro! We will receive another 18 pallets of diapers on Leap Day – February 29^th! AND…. We just notified Operation Breakthrough that they will be the next agency to receive diapers every month from HB! We are excited to add Operation Breakthrough to our list of current partners and to continue to grow to meet the needs of the community.

Spring Forward
HappyBottoms Spring Contest
See how you can win HappyBottoms Final Four prizes by helping us diaper more babies in need. 

Do a Diaper Drive for HappyBottoms in March and compete for our final four bracket with prizes! Click here to learn how to help and win!

Diaper Banks are Different - Why do we say that? Two reasons.

 First – we only focus on baby diapers and they are not a fungible product. That means you cannot use something else in their place and achieve the same result. Unlike clothing or food – where you can substitute a sweater for a jacket to keep you warm or peas for corn to provide nutrition you can’t substitute another product for a baby diaper and keep that little bottom clean and dry. That is why we focus on diapers. And guess what? No one else in our community does that.

Second -  when an organization becomes a current partner of HappyBottoms that means we are making a commitment to become a reliable source for their diapers every month for at least the one year contract we have signed. That is right – every month! That is why this is such a big job and why we need your help.

Short Months do not mean short changed at HB.

Our top five accomplishments in February are –

5.            Scheduling  our first big event on June 11^th when HappyBottoms will be holding an event with the T-Bones! That is right – HappyBottoms will be at the T-Bones on Monday June 11^th and we want you to come for a night of Fun Well Done with the T-Bones and opportunities to support HappyBottoms in providing diapers to low income families. Plan to bring any open packs of diapers that you are not using to place in our bins. You can also bring new packs of diapers, a few dollars and some really big checks made out to HappyBottoms! More to come as we get closer.

4.            Securing a donation of product from Indigo Wild for our Mother’s Day campaign. Yep – We are already talking Mother’s Day even though it is 2.5 months away. It is our biggest annual celebration and we are going all out this year with drives, partnerships and events. This donation from Indigo Wild will actually go to our Moms who receive diapers as washing your hands is one of the most important parts of healthy diapering. See our educational brochure to find out more.

3.            Holding our second Happy Hour at The GAF and receiving donations of diapers and dollars on February 23^rd. If you were there, thanks for coming – if you missed it, come to our next event on April 19^th at Stick Sisters in Hawthorne Plaza. Our thanks to the GAF for the great appetizers and the great atmosphere. We even saw Frank Boal of 810 Sports as he did some live broadcasting that night. So don’t miss out on our next event – you never know who will be there.

2.            Securing another 57,000 diaper donation through the National Diaper Bank Network  as part of their partnership with Huggies Every Little Bottom and the children’s charity K.I.D.S. - Kids In Distressed Situations. We hope to be included each quarter as they distribute 20 million diapers through diaper banks and other agencies across the nation. As we mentioned earlier that donation will be received Wednesday, February 29^th!

1.            Receiving a donation of space that will give HappyBottoms work space for our volunteers to process diapers from C&C Group and Kessinger Hunter! This is the most exciting piece of news on this list.

You may be asking why – so I will tell you. It provides a place to work. It means all those girl scouts and boy scouts who have asked how they can help will have a place to help us.

It means that all those open diaper packages can be repackaged and given to children who need them in a more efficient fashion!

It is utterly amazing as it is through  tremendously generous donors who totally understand why we do what we do. We are so thankful to have made this incredible connection.

More to come on this new space in March so stay tuned!

Nuff said – right? Well, almost. I can’t close without saying how much we still need your support to meet the diaper needs in our community.

So here is a list of just what we need –

Your time – volunteer to help us by clicking here.

Your talent – by becoming and Ambassador or joining our board. For Ambassadors – contact Joe@happybottoms.org. For Board positions – contact liz@happybottoms.org

Your dollars – we still need to raise $50,000 to meet our expense targets this year. Click here to donate today.

Your diapers – new packs and open packs too. Here are our drop sites.

And finally your support to get the word out about this unmet need in our community. All you have to do is forward this letter to one friend to help us increase awareness.

Thanks!

Liz

JANUARY NEWS

Little  things matter  A LOT!

At HappyBottoms we can sum up January by saying we learned a lot of little things about the kids we serve and we are thinking you might like to know these little things too. First, we provided diapers for over 1500 unique children in 2011. We touched their lives and, literally covered their bottoms, with your help.

They are male and female and almost every ethnicity – African American (36%), Caucasian (37%), Hispanic/Latino (18%),  American Indian/Alaskan Native (1%),  Asian/Pacific Islander(2%) and 6% other.

They live right here – in Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas and Jackson, Lafayette, Cass, Clay and Platte Counties in Missouri.

Sixty-seven percent live below the Federal Poverty Level and 25% live at income levels up to 200% of the federal poverty level.

The bottom line (pun intended) is they need your help to just have diapers – a basic need we believe every little bottom has a right to. Diapers matter A LOT!

How does HappyBottoms know this stuff?

You may be wondering – how does HappyBottoms know this stuff? Ok – we will let you in on our secret – as it is really not a secret but it is confidential… and secure. We have been gathering data on the children we provide diapers to in a blinded fashion since we began providing diapers in April of 2011. This data helps us share with you and any other individuals, foundations, corporations, etc. who we help and provides the reason for why they should help us at HappyBottoms. Data helps identify the problem of diaper need and is the first step in being able to solve it.

Problems and Consequences

Solving the problem of diaper need and the unintended consequences of not having diapers – what are we doing about it? Here are the top five things HappyBottoms did in January to help solve the problem –

1. We added another agency to our list of current partner agencies who will receive diapers from HappyBottoms. Welcome to the Don Bosco Center. (For a list of all current partners click here.) BTW – that means we will be providing diapers to more children!
2. In collaboration with CAPA – Child Abuse Prevention Association and MCHC – Mother and Child Health Coalition – we developed and educational brochure that includes tips on Healthy Diapering and Stress reduction techniques for parents and caregivers to be distributed with our diapers. Click here to see the brochures and download copies.
3. We held our first meeting of the Ambassadors for HappyBottoms under the leadership of Joe Calhoun to kick off the volunteer activities that will help grow and support this organization. It was a great meeting with some amazing ideas which will help us continue to grow to meet the needs of the community. Thanks to all who came! If you would like to join this awesome team – contact Joe@happybottoms.org – we always need more help.
4. Our Board of Directors met and approved the 2012 budget which will fund providing diapers to an average of 800 children a month this year. This is really important as it demonstrates the commitment of these leaders to grow HappyBottoms to serve more kids. (BTW – we are still recruiting for a few more board positions – so if you have the time and talent to devote – please send us your resume.)
5. Our grant writing team – Pam and Liz (well mostly Pam) spent countless hours writing two grants to support the ongoing operations of HappyBottoms and fund our first paid employee – a part-time Program Manager. We will keep you posted on this one as it will signal the next step on the road to HappyBottoms continued evolution to become a sustainable part of our community support network for families in need.

So what’s on tap for the rest of the year?

2012 will be another crazy year for HappyBottoms. You read how we plan to take on providing diapers for more children – but quite honestly I will tell you, we are not setting our sights high enough to meet Kansas City’s needs. There are at least 4000 children out there who need diapers in our community.

 We are talking babies. They cannot ask for diapers and their parents are struggling to get diapers. IF – and I really am saying  IF  because it is uncertain - we raise the money to support our plan for 2012, we will only be providing diapers to 20% of the kids who need them.  That is not enough.

So if it bothers you as much as it bothers us that there are children in our community who do not have clean dry diapers this year – make a commitment to help us blow this plan away and get diapers to more than 20% of these kids by providing your financial support – or your time and talent – or volunteering your company to do a diaper drive for us. These kids really do need every diaper we can give them.

It is the little things – diapers – that matter A LOT!

Liz

Don’t forget to check out our upcoming events by clicking here.

DECEMBER NEWS

2011 – WHAT A YEAR FOR HAPPYBOTTOMS

2011 was a year of amazing accomplishments at HB. Did you know we started in January with no diapers? That’s right. The current leadership team of Pam, Linda and Liz started in January with a great website, some files on our current partner agencies, a great name and 501c3 designation and an envelope with a little over $1000. In this letter we would like to share our accomplishments and thank all the wonderful partners, donors, sponsors and volunteers who made them happen!

FACTS AND FIGURES – OOPS – I Mean Diapers!

We began distributing to our partner agencies in April of this year. Since April 18^th, we have distributed 166,842 diapers! The number of children we have provided diapers to each month has grown from 148 children in April to 450 in November. We expect that December’s number will be close to 900 as we added new agencies and provided a one-time distribution to the Johnson County Christmas Bureau’s Christmas Shop to give diapers to 300 children in Johnson County, KS, for the holidays! Our other new partner agencies are True Light Family Resource Center, Synergy Services and reStart Inc  bringing the total number of agencies we distribute diapers to each month to 14!

DONATIONS and DOLLARS

As I mentioned, HB started the year with a little over $1000. We finished the year having raised over $55,000 through the generous support of our donors, sponsor organizations and writing and receiving several grants. If you follow us, you know we have no paid employees and maintain the lowest possible overhead to provide the greatest number of diapers to children who need them. We also received in-kind donations of products and services that have allowed us to experience tremendous growth. We plan to share all the details on our success when we file our financial/information return -  Form 990.

DECEMBER”S BIGGEST ACCOMPLISHMENT WAS….

Distributing diapers from our new warehouse space! We made the news once again thanks to NBC Action News KSHB- 41. Here is the clip if you have not seen it. In December we distributed 39,746 diapers from our new space at Hope Faith Ministries. We want to thank HFM for their generous donation of space as we could not have achieved this success without their wonderful support.

EXCITING EVENTS DROVE DECEMBER SUCCESS

December was our biggest month for Drives and Events to date thanks to the following organizations –

M!NT rallied Gordon Biersch and Spaces Magazine to hold a shopping event on December 15^th

The Overland Park South Rotary presented a matching grant of $1500 to HB at our Open House at Hope Faith Ministries on December 14^th 

Children’s Mercy Hospital donated $500 to our cause this month!

The Quilters Guild of Greater Kansas City, Research College of Nursing RSNA, P.E.O. Chapter LJ, The YMCA of Greater Kansas City, Children’s Mercy Hospital, Prairie Life Fitness Centers and Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church all did drives for HappyBottoms this month!

T-SHIRTS NOW ON SALE – GET YOURS TODAY

We have our t-shirts on sale through our website. Click here to check them out. When you purchase a t-shirt you are making a tax deductible donation of $10 to HappyBottoms in addition to getting a very cool shirt. Wouldn’t it be great to see these all over the metro – or perhaps the country??

THANKS, THANKS and MORE THANKS

Our list of organizations and individuals who we are thankful to continues to grow each month. Here are just a few of the names of those who make our mission possible. (For more great supporters, please scroll through our previous newsletters.)

Kebra Rios of Tastefully Simple for donating food for our Open House and Vicki George for donating desserts.

Marti Bodenhamer of M!NT, Jennifer Demerath of SPACES, and Chris Stuewe of Gordon Biersch  for making the shopping event at M!NT an incredible success.

Prairie Life Fitness of Overland Park and Bank of the West of Lees Summit  for becoming new drop sites.

Courtney Wasson of Busy Bee for donating her graphic design skills to help create an educational brochure for HB. (More to come on this in January!)

Arbor Pharmaceuticals for funding the printing of our educational brochure.

Kerry Adam for turning her holiday party into a fundraiser for HappyBottoms.

VML for agreeing to continue to support HappyBottoms in 2012 with a redesign of our website. Just wait until you see how awesome that will be! (Considering it is pretty awesome already.)

OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW

As we look to 2012 and what HappyBottoms needs to accomplish to help Kansas City babies in need have diapers, we look to you and ask again for your ongoing support. Our 2012 goal is to provide diapers to 800 children per month- but that only covers 20% of the need in our community. Too many babies have days without clean, dry diapers. HappyBottoms has the ability to serve more than 800 children each month - but we need more funding to do so. That is where you come in. It is not too late to make a tax deductible donation for 2011 or make a jumpstart with your 2012 giving. We will be needing diapers and dollars 365 days a year – every year. So as you enjoy your holidays, think about making a baby’s holiday a little cleaner, dryer and warmer by donating to HappyBottoms.

Liz

Don’t forget to check out our upcoming events by clicking here.