In January, First Christian Church in Seymour opened its new diaper pantry and helped nine local families on its first day. The idea came to Maggie Daugherty at the 2016 Regional Assembly in Springfield. She learned that many families struggle to afford diapers, and that government supplemental assistance programs don’t provide them.

Describing herself as just somebody who saw a need and jumped in, she got the project rolling and now many members of the church are involved. Shelves have been built at the church to store the infant, toddler, and adult diapers, as well as additional personal care items like toilet paper and soap, which are also not covered by assistance programs. Volunteers will staff the space on the third Saturday morning of each month. Even more volunteers package the diapers into bundles of 18 each for distribution. They’ve also been in contact with the Ozark Diaper Bank and have cloth diapers available for loan.

The new program has been highlighted by the local newspaper and television. Maggie says she is amazed with the response and looks to the future saying, “We’ll see what God does with this!”