Loving Bottoms Diaper Bank has rapidly grown in the little over two years that they’ve been collecting diapers for families who need them.
They’ve been based out of a classroom at Learning Connections in Galesburg, in what was formerly District 205’s Cooke School for the last year.
Lee Ann Porter, the founder of Loving Bottoms tells WGIL that Loving Bottoms was not being evicted, “they’re not telling us we have to leave or anything like that, it’s just we’re kind of outgrowing what we can do from that space. So we have been kind of looking around.”
The new location is at what was the Cleary building at 3021 West Main St. in Galesburg, across from Farm King.
One of the nice features of this building is a heated garage in the back. They will also have an office space next to their warehouse.
“We have the ability to get big shipments of diapers from Huggies, that require us to bring in a semi. We would be able to do that from there,” says Porter. “So it’s really going to enable us to be able to bring more diapers in and out through there than we could.”
Loving Bottoms operates like a food bank but for diapers. Since opening in fall of 2017, they collected 33,000 diapers in the first year and then 75,000 last year.
Porter is projecting that 2018 will see still impressive growth, estimating near 125,000 will be brought in this year. She says more diapers means that they can partner with more agencies and distribute to a wider area.
