On Tuesday, March 10 the Greater Hartford Gives Foundation submitted written testimony to the legislature’s Human Services Committee in support of House Bill 5486, An Act Concerning A Diaper Partnership Grant Program. We support the state’s efforts to provide an essential lifeline to families with children. This proposal recognizes the challenges many families with limited income who have young children are facing to meet their most basic needs, including diapers.
As part of our efforts to dismantle structural racism and advance equity in social and economic mobility in Greater Hartford’s Black and Latine communities, Greater Hartford Gives supports basic human needs in our region by ensuring food security, reducing homelessness, and expanding access to health care. This work recognizes that longstanding systems and practices are challenged to meet people’s most basic human needs. We support nonprofits working to reduce homelessness, improve access to food and other basic needs, and improve the physical and emotional wellbeing of Greater Hartford residents, prioritizing Black and Latine residents who are disproportionately impacted by structural racism and bias. Our grants are structured to help strengthen the local and regional safety net and ensure people have the stability necessary to participate in education, the workforce, and their community. We also support activities that increase the coordination among basic needs providers, and the responsiveness of local and state agencies. The proposed partnership between an organization representing hospitals and a nonprofit that distributes diapers statewide advances our interests in supporting collaborations among organizations engaged in complementary work.
Given changes in federal policy in implementing SNAP and other public benefit programs, Connecticut must provide meaningful support to families with limited income as much as fiscally possible. Through the foundation’s grantmaking and other investments, we have seen the value of providing assistance with basic human needs to residents first-hand. High grocery prices and the rising number of families struggling to make ends meet require the state to provide a safety net that ensures that families have access to basic necessities—including diapers, which are a significant expense to young families with infants and toddlers.
The foundation commends the proposal’s creation of a Diaper Partnership Grant Program to provide $1 million in state funding for diapers to eligible children three years old or younger from households earning up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. The foundation also supports the proposal’s directing the Department of Social Services to fund the “diaper partnership” to foster a collaboration between an organization representing hospitals and a nonprofit that distributes diapers to ensure families throughout the state can benefit from the new grant program.
According to UConn’s Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis report, Better Health for Children and Increased Opportunities for Families – the Social and Economic Impacts of the Diaper Bank of Connecticut, every dollar invested in support for providing diapers yields an $11 economic return. According to the report, families who send their children to childcare, these families miss approximately four days of work because they did not have enough diapers to bring their child to childcare, a requirement for most childcare providers. This equates to about $6,000 in lost wages if using the Connecticut minimum wage as the baseline.
For many years, the foundation has provided annual grants to address basic human needs (totaling approximately $8 million this past year) to support regional and local nonprofit agencies in providing direct services and addressing systemic challenges. Our grants tackle a range of related issues, including food security and healthy food choices and other supports for wellness.
These grants include the foundation’s annual Basic Human Needs Emergency Assistance grants where more than 60 percent of funding supports food assistance. Last year, $755,000 was granted by the foundation to 70 nonprofits, including faith-based and mutual aid organizations through its Emergency Assistance grants. These grants prioritized nonprofits that serve neighborhoods and towns with a higher percentage of residents living in poverty and sought to reduce barriers to equitable access to basic needs. Several of these grants, including a grant to Diaper Bank of Connecticut, which utilized grant funds to provide diapers to families in need in the Greater Hartford region we serve.
The foundation has provided grant funding to the Diaper Bank of Connecticut for more than a decade in support of its work to provide more than 1,600 families throughout Greater Hartford. All of the families served by the Diaper Bank earn 201 percent or less the Federal Poverty Level. The total number of families in Connecticut who qualify is at least 70,000. Over 70,000 + children 4 and under are enrolled in Husky A. These children live in families earning 201 percent or less the Federal Poverty Level. Many of the families would not be able to access opportunities to pursue educational and employment opportunities without an adequate supply of diapers. Access to this basic health financial stability need among young children and their families fosters health and wellness and can impact quality of life. Although the Diaper Bank of Connecticut is one of the largest such organizations in the country, it only serves approximately only seven percent of the diaper need in the state, based on its distribution numbers.
The Emergency Assistance grants also support community-based organizations of different sizes and in locations to meet the critical needs we see in the region. Another recent recipient of a foundation Emergency Assistance Grant was Gentle Love Connections, a Manchester-based organization with a focus on babies and toddlers. Operating as a diaper pantry, the nonprofit provides baby necessities to families who cannot afford the approximately $100 monthly cost per child. In 2020, then-10th grader Kyle Zingler established Gentle Love Connections; since that time, the organization has distributed more than 600,000 diapers to marginalized and low-income families with the help of several community partners that support families in East Hartford, Manchester and Vernon.
Our investments have helped to address a portion of the enormous need, but philanthropy cannot adequately fill the significant gap in funding as a result of cuts to federal programs. Federal reductions in programs, including SNAP and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), make it harder to pay for things that are not covered such as diapers which can cost families $100 to $150 per month, without additional state investments.
The foundation also supports the House Bill 5486’s inclusion of reporting requirements detailing the program’s impact, including the number of diapers distributed, families served, health benefits, and cost savings, along with recommendations for future funding. As part of its own investments, the Greater Hartford Gives relies on grantee reports and evaluations to learn from nonprofits’ data and experiences administering programs as a way to develop strategies to tackle emerging needs and to improve service delivery.
The Greater Hartford Gives Foundation is ready to partner with legislators, state government leaders, philanthropy, advocates, and other stakeholders to ensure that all residents have the resources they need to thrive. We invite policymakers and other stakeholders to meet with us to explore public-private partnerships and ways philanthropic dollars could complement existing resources to help address funding gaps and foster equitable strategies to support Connecticut residents with significant unmet needs.