HERO: Lisa Sweet, Registered Nurse & Director / Co-Founder of Sweet Beginnings Family Resources Center
NOMONATED BY: Roberta Christman,  AAA Travel Mountainwest

Sweet Beginnings Family Resource Center started many years ago as an adjunct to an adoption service Lisa was running. As the years went on she noticed they were providing a lot of diapers and as a health care provider she wanted to find ou what the benefits beyond keeping babies dry and clean were. She found that “diaper need” affects 1 in 3 families. These families have a gap between paychecks or funding to buy diapers and have to decide whether or pay an electricity bill, buy groceries or buy diapers. Many of these families will reuse a diaper after it been soiled or line it with paper towels or even use a shirt.

Providing just 20 emergencies diapers a month per family has cut down emergency room visits for diaper rash and also helps women go to work or school because they can take their children to day care, or a child can go to preschool. Children that go to preschool are more likely to go to college. Lisa has engaged 25 community partners in order to reach more families. Each partner receives diapers every week and they assist the families they work with.

Families also go directly to Sweet Beginnings Family Resource Center every 30 days. Covid 19 has been a challenge since most of their partners have been shut down. 95% of the diapers distributed come from community donations and as people shelter in place or stop working donations decrease too. They adjusted to ensure they could provide diapers safely to families and keep volunteers safe. Now they only take closed donations of diapers and are open only 1-2 hours to provide 40 diapers for every child every two weeks.

With these changes they still help an average of 60 children a week. Lisa’s non-profit also provides feminine hygiene products, to middle and high schools, police departments (for homeless) and shelters. Diaper clients also benefit from having these hygiene products. Like diapers many women can not afford the monthly products so they use socks and toilet paper. During a normal time, girls miss school and women miss work due to the lack feminine hygiene products. She knows that this program helps provide a little dignity and health to these women. They are not huge but Lisa, her husband Dean and their volunteer’s hearts are.