Andie Szczepkowski, a recent nursing school grad from St. Joseph Parish in Danville, operates a diaper ministry from her home. The grassroots effort endeavors to offer a month’s supply of diapers to families in need.A simple question to God this past winter – “What do you want me to do to help people?” – has turned into a community-based diaper ministry for a nursing school graduate inspired by the Blessed Mother’s willingness to follow God’s plan.
A member of St. Joseph Parish in Danville who grew up in the Catholic Church at St. Pius in Selinsgrove, Andie Szczepkowski said she’s always felt a call to help people in her community. Shortly after purchasing her new home in Danville in January, she asked God to point her to where she could serve.
“I remember it distinctly. It was 1:00 in the morning and the idea of a diaper ministry popped into my head. It was definitely the Holy Spirit pointing me in this direction, and I said, ‘Alright, God, let’s do it.’”
Szczepkowski chose “Under Her Mantle” as the ministry’s name, symbolic of Mary’s purity and her love for Jesus.
The grassroots ministry started out small. Szczepkowski set up a Go Fund Me account to collect monetary donations for the purchase of diapers and reached out to folks in the community to host diaper drives. The Facebook page for the ministry also inspires donations and allows families in need to connect with her.
Those small-scale steps of one person’s desire to help have grown exponentially, illustrating the basic need for diapers.
“The first week, there were five requests for diapers. By the second week, there were 200 requests,” Szczepkowski said. “I honestly did not know how big a need this is for families.”
As requests for diapers funnel into the ministry’s Facebook page, Szczepkowski’s approach is to distribute a month’s worth of diapers to those who are in immediate need. That’s about 300 diapers per donation as supply allows.
Since January, Under Her Mantle has supplied nearly $10,000 worth of diapers to more than 500 families. But Szczepkowski yearns to do more. That means finding individuals and groups to offer financial donations and host diaper drives for the ministry.
“I truly try to help everybody that I can. The most challenging part right now is that we are limited in diaper donations and I cannot help the same family more than every three months,” she said.
A box of diapers from Andie Szczepkowski’s “Under Her Mantle” ministry is ready to be distributed to a family in need.Szczepkowski operates the volunteer effort out of her home, storing donations in her shed and coordinating pick-ups with families in the parking lot at St. Joseph’s, each box meaning the world of difference to those she serves.
She’s putting her pro-life values into action, offering dignity to babies who would otherwise suffer health problems from wearing diapers for long periods of time, re-using soiled diapers, or going without them at all.
“I think the pro-life aspect of this ministry really inspires me. It’s a way to put our values into practice, to support moms who chose life. If we’re going to be pro-life, we have to do something to support it, and this is my way of doing that,” Szczepkowski said.
Of all the families the ministry has assisted – whether single moms, two-parent households facing job loss, or grandparents, aunts and uncles stepping up to the plate – Szczepkowski recalls one that particularly touched her heart.
“A married couple with a stay-at-home mom reached out when the husband lost his job and they had gone without diapers due to lack of income. The wife reached out to me on a Sunday night, and I delivered diapers to her the next morning. She hugged me and cried, and we just sat and talked,” Szczepkowski said. “I invited her to come to church and she was there the next week at Mass. I hope that through this experience, I could help lead her closer to God.”
Szczepkowski is aiming high and has big goals for the ministry’s future She wants to grow the efforts in a manner that can reach and sustain the families requesting diapers, acquire a storage unit to accommodate supplies, undertake larger marketing efforts to increase funding and someday host fundraising events. She’s also working on its 501c(3) status.
“I would love for this to get as big as it can to help everyone who is coming to us with requests, to make a difference in our community, in our state, in our country,” she said. “To a mom or dad or grandparent worrying about how they’re going to put a diaper on their child, this ministry can take a weight off them,” she said. “This is a need and I’m here to help.”
Learn more about Under Her Mantle via its Facebook page or Go Fund Me account, or by emailing Szczepkowski at underhermantlepa@gmail.com.
(Photos by Jen Reed, The Catholic Witness.)
By Jen Reed, The Catholic Witness
