Edmonton mothers initiate project to help struggling parents buy essential baby items

The high cost of food and clothing has left some parents struggling to buy essential items for their children, but two mothers are working together to give struggling parents a break.

Two Edmonton mothers started an initiative aimed at taking the pressure off parents who are struggling to buy essential baby items.

Iris Toon, a mother of three, owns and operates a maternity store called ‘The Fourth’ which offers different products such as toiletries, accessories, and maternity clothing. This month, she wants to do something more to help other mothers in Edmonton by initiating a diaper drive.

“After I started ‘The Fourth’ I was like thinking back how can I help moms and remembered ‘you know what, what if I save all these diapers that are stuck in the closet moms have and we can donate it to the food bank,” said Toon.

This is the second year of their annual drive with their first year receiving more than 21,000 diapers and 6,000 dollars in monetary donations to the food bank.

She is not the only one helping the cause, Jill Footz with the Edmonton Playgrounds partnered with Iris to help promote and even contribute some boxes of diapers.

“Iris is a friend of mine, and I’ve always admired what she does for her community and for the community of Edmonton as a whole and when she approached me with the idea of a diaper drive, I jumped in with both feet,” said Footz.

The diapers they received are going directly to Edmonton’s Food Bank, and there’s a reason why diapers are a key item.

“Diapers are actually very costly, babies go through them, in a newborn phase you can go and use up to eight to 10 diapers a day and that really adds up like with the cost of everything, diapers is just an additional cost to that,” said Toon.

Jill is a mother of two and while both of them are fortunate enough to provide their kids with the essentials, they want to help others who are less fortunate, especially during the holiday season.

“Knowing that there are families in our community that have to make that choice is heartbreaking and so if we can alleviate the pressure or take away something, whether it’s in food security or some insecurity around being able to buy things like diapers, essential items for babies,” said Footz.

As of Saturday, they received more than 600 diapers, but aim to collect 20,000 diapers for the food bank by the end of the year. The drives until January 31, 2025.