Marissa blew me away last night.
I’ve known Marissa since she was a 14 year old 9th grader. We immediately became very close because of our shared sense of humor and absurdity. Marissa is very intelligent and funny, and has taught me so much with her ability to cut through nonsense with her own wit and nonsense.
Last night, Marissa delivered an activity that was the most interactive one yet. The group was divided into 4 tables, and each table was given a different set of money and bills. Marissa gave instructions as to how to divvy the money up– money was tight as it was, but add in diapers, and childcare, and the occasional emergency, and each table was in deficit quickly. Everyone was engaged with their tablemates. The energy was great. Later I asked Marissa if she had presented this exercise before and she said no. Her natural presentation skills made it seem like she’d done it a thousand times.
This exercise led to Marissa describing Donor Diapers and its mission to provide diapering supplies to families in need. Providing the context for the need including informing the room about the lack of social service support for diaper supplices, the health consequences of insufficient diapers, and the financial realities of diapering.
Major take-aways:
- Diapers are expensive. $90/month on diapers seemed like just a beginning number. That’s a $1000/year, and you can have more than one child in diapers at once.
- I had never even considered the health consequences of penis circumcisions in babies. If a penis is circumcised, then it becomes irritated, more prone to bacteria, and therefore needs more regular diaper changes.
- $500 donated to Donor Diapers would outfit 5 babies for an entire month in diapers. $500 to some other nonprofits in town might be a drop in their budgetary bucket.