Kiwanis-family stocks supplies for babies, toddlers

Huggies or Pampers. Enfamil or Similac. Gerber or Heinz. It doesn’t matter which brand of baby gear or grub a parent chooses: It all adds up. A lot.

That’s why the Pleasant Grove, Utah, Kiwanis club and Pleasant Grove High School Key Club organized a donation drive to stock the shelves at the Utah County Regional Food Bank’s Kiwanis Baby Care Cupboard.

The Pleasant Grove program is a satellite of the Kiwanis Baby Care Cupboard started by the Kiwanis Club of Capital Hill, Salt Lake City, which received a US$25,000 grant from the Kiwanis International Foundation in 2003-04. From its grant money, the Capital Hill club gave the Pleasant Grove club and nine other clubs $2,500 matching grants to create their own baby care cupboards, expanding the program throughout the state.

Pleasant Grove Kiwanians and Key Clubbers worked together to raise additional cash and items, setting up donation sites at several retailers. Kiwanis club president Ginny Peterson says Key Clubbers made posters advertising the collection and worked beside the Kiwanians accepting donations.

“We appreciate any of that youthful vitality we can get ahold of!” she says.

Besides staffing collection sites, the club included an article about its project in a newsletter that goes out in utility bill mailings. Two church groups saw the article and conducted independent drives, generating about $1,500 worth of goods and cash.

“It really was a very contagious thing,” Ginny says. “All we had to do was tell people to come and donate.”