Urbana high school hosts record-breaking diaper drive

URBANA Ill. (WCIA) — Thousands of donations were the result of one high school’s homecoming week. Saint Thomas More’s celebrations were two weeks ago, but it’s having a lasting impact on the community.

Students collected a record-breaking number of diapers for the Crisis Nursery in Urbana.

“It’s super fun just to see everyone come together and do something to really benefit the community,” St. Thomas More senior Mary Kathryn Kluesner said.

It was a friendly competition with a community service focus.

“It has such a great impact, and we usually are their supply for around the year which is something really cool,” Kluesner said.

Students like Kluesner competed in teams to see who could bring in the most diapers during homecoming week.

“Last year they brought in about 12,000 diapers, and those served all the children at the nursery for nearly an entire year, so just a huge impact in the overall support that we get,” Crisis Nursery Executive Director Stephanie Record said.

This is the fourth annual donation drive, and the school’s biggest year yet. Students and staff dropped off nearly 19,000 diapers at the nursery.

“It allows us to spend our financial dollars on other things that are needed at the nursery,” Record said. “So this huge donation makes a big impact on our overall budget, but also just the children and the families we serve.”

The nursery provides free childcare for families in need. With such a large donation — they might be able to give some of the diapers away.

“Teenagers really do have big hearts, and doing things like this I think really helps the community to see that,” Sister Bridget Martin, St. Thomas High School principal, said. “While oftentimes people say, ‘Oh they’re teens they can’t do anything good,’ they actually can, and they do, and they want to.”

This is one of a couple other service projects the school will do throughout the year, but school leadership said this is definitely one of the students’ favorites.

“They always have such a philanthropic heart over there and doing things for the community and for organizations like ours, so I think it’s been a really cool partnership that they’ve continued to do,” Record said.

St. Thomas More will be hosting a canned food drive and penny war in the next few months. Students are eager to have another chance to compete.

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