This is part of a series spotlighting donor stories. The following is based on an interview with Tom Curran in conversation with Dulcey Reiter.
After 43 years as a pediatric physical therapist, I know one thing for certain: a child under stress isn't absorbing their environment to their fullest capacity. They are preoccupied with how they feel—the discomfort and the anxiety they sense in their caregivers…And I wonder what learning they are missing.
My wife Roz and I have always worked with kids in some capacity, including Pediatric PT, education setting, and MA instructor. This has been the focus of our careers, as well as our lives. It's shameful and embarrassing that we live in a country where there are so many children who are not well supplied with diapers.
Why Diapers?
There are so many problems out there, including poverty and people who suffer injustice. The list is long. There are so many worthy organizations that need support. How do you choose?
When I got Lisa's (Truong) email saying HAMO had given away 75 million diapers, something clicked. Here's an organization keeping it simple, getting back to basics–back to our humanity.
A mother shouldn't have to feel guilt or shame just to provide the basic needs of her baby. That thought sealed it for me. There was no second-guessing about where I wanted to make my donation.
We don't even know the developmental cost of a child living with diaper scarcity. That stress doesn't just affect the mother—it carries over to the child. What’s the invisible cost of this? We simply don't know.
We know that every child deserves to be fully present in their own development, not distracted by stresses no baby should have to bear.
That's why we support Help a Mother Out.