Battle Bumms

As many parents know, the total cost of diapering a child from birth through potty-training can be very expensive.  Disposable diapers, after all, are one-use only and a newborn can go through ten or more a day!  It adds up quickly.

More and more parents are turning to cloth diapers, but unfortunately, the start-up cost can be a little daunting.  For example, the cost of just a single BumGenius 4.0 pocket diaper is almost $18.  A whole stash of just 30 diapers can easily run $500 dollars, which can be a lot of money to put down at once, especially for families who may be living paycheck to paycheck on one income.  

Military spouse Victoria Emry started cloth diapering her son in June of 2012.  

"After spending nearly $500 to get started my husband and I looked at each other and said, at the same time, that there had to be a cheaper way to get started," she said. "From there it went from us thinking about making our own line of diapers with more affordable prices, to us deciding that we wanted to focus on helping military families get started and it was all details after that."

Victoria decided to started her organization Battle Bumms.  With the help of donations, she puts together cloth diaper starter kits.  These kits include 12 diapers, 12 cloth wipes, a wetbag and a pail liner.  These kits are then given to eligible low-income military families stationed in Colorado Springs and Buckley Air Force Base.  So far, the organization has donated sets to five families and has another five in the works, three of which are for families awaiting the arrivals of their babies.  
Battle Bumms is accepts donations to be used in these kits.  Both used and new diapering items, (specifically pockets/prefolds/flats/fitted diapers, diaper covers, gently used Snappis or Boingos, inserts, wetbags, pail liners, and cloth wipes), can be dropped off at the Cloth Diaper Market.  

"In addition to collecting donations and donating starter sets, we make and sell wetbags (small, medium and large sizes) and cloth wipes (in two sizes) to help raise funds," said Victoria.  "100% of the proceeds go back to the organization. Our products are sold at Cloth Diaper Market, as well as from our website as custom orders."

While Battle Bumms is still a bit of a small operation, Victoria hopes for it to eventually become a countrywide non-profit, with branches spread across the military communities.  (Fellow cloth diaper enthusiasts have already contacted her about wanting to open branches in several states!) However, she would first like to build a solid foundation for Battle Bumms as well as register as an official 501(c)(3) organization.

To learn more about Battle Bumms, make a monetary donation, or to check eligibility, visit their website, http://www.battlebumms.com/.

**This post was written by Paula R.