“We’ll match up to one-thousand diapers and beyond.” said Jay Krumme of the Rotary Club of Bristow. This was two days after Riley Braden had challenged her Bristow 4-H Club to collect 1,000 diapers. She met with the Rotary Club of Bristow to ask them to partner with her to match the collection.
National Diaper Need Awareness week is September 14-20, 2026.The awareness week is organized by the National Diaper Bank Network that helps connect families to the resources they need.
Riley is a gold medal winner for her Child Care and Development 4-H Project and loves to help babies and families as she learns more about caring for younger children. Gathering one thousand diapers will help ten local families have the diapers they need for a month. “With the help of the Rotarians we can help twenty or maybe even thirty families have enough clean diapers for a month right here in Bristow.” said Riley Braden.
Riley's 4-H Project goal is to help fill the gap between how many diapers families can afford and how many they need. Riley learned that one out of two families in America are diaper insecure, meaning that half of the families in our community cannot afford the dry and clean diapers that are needed and our young Bristow children. Children will be wearing diapers longer than they should be. Riley’s goal is to help ten percent of the families that statistically need this help and will be donated to the local Diaper Closet at the Nazarene Church. Families can pick up a free package of diapers once a week each Wednesday from 5:30-6:30 p.m. or the first Wednesday of the month from 9:30-10:30 a.m. There is no need to qualify or paperwork to fill out. The Diaper Closet only asks for the age of the child that they are providing for.
While touring the Bristow Diaper Closet, Riley met Jeanette Biddle, the organizer of the diaper closet, and learned that reusable diapers cost about the same as disposable diapers when you consider the cost of the laundromat, water at home, or the investment of purchasing the reusable diapers to begin with.
To help with the collection the community can purchase and donate any size, any brand or amount of diapers and drop them off at the Community Bank of Bristow collection box, just inside the lobby from now until mid-October.
Riley was invited to speak at the Rotary Club of Bristow by the Rotarian of the Week, Kristin Weaver, on September 3rd. She shared her goal of gathering one-thousand diapers and the club agreed to match those diapers with other individuals in the meeting offering to match above and beyond what the club would do.