Name: Lisa Truong
Age: 43
Title: Co-Founder & Executive Director of Help a Mother Out
Town: Oakland, Calif.
Her challenge: Make sure every baby can have clean diapers.
The inspiration: In 2009, Truong decided to take a few years off from her career to “hang out with my two little ones.” While watching an episode of “Oprah” about families who were newly homeless due to the recession, something struck a chord in her. “The episode just really moved me,” she tells Lifetime. “I really had everything. If my babies needed anything, we were able to provide for the basics.”
The idea: Wanting to give back to the community, Truong mentioned the episode to a friend, also a new mom, and they decided to take action. “The initial thought was to do a clothing drive. As we started reaching out to social service agencies in the Bay Area, the staff at the agencies would tell us that clothes are great, but what they really need are hygiene items. So we started a blog and called it ‘Help a Mother Out.’ In the course of setting up a Mother’s Day drive, we found out that diapers were not covered under any social and safety net programs. We collected 15,000 diapers.”
The hurdles: After the success of the drive, Truong realized that not only were people willing to donate, but “awareness needed to happen on a very large scale in order to impact public policy.” But that wasn’t always easy. “You need to make your center prize sustainable,” she tells us. “You’ve got to raise awareness and then you’ve got to convince people to give you money to fulfill your mission. There were a couple times that I had to tell my board if we can’t make it this year, I need to go find a ‘real’ job. It was really hard to get to a point where you can be sustainable and have paid staff who could help you build the organization.”
The success: Help a Mother out now serves dozens of family service organizations in California. They expect to distribute their five millionth diaper in April. Truong , Help a Mother Out has changed the lives of families all over the Bay Area, all because diapers, an item many take for granted. “I’m really inspired by the families that we’re serving through this program,” Truong tells Lifetime. “There’s one story [that sticks out] – a mom who couldn’t find anyone to take care of her child because she couldn’t afford enough diapers. She wanted to take GED classes, [but couldn’t]. So when she started getting diaper assistance, she was able to leave her baby with friends, family members, so that she could go and take GED classes.”
How you can help: Truong points out that because safety net programs like Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) do not cover diapers, this is a prevalent issue across the entire country. “San Francisco is the only city that has prioritized diapers for families in need,” she says. “It’s definitely a prototype that we’re really hoping other municipalities will be inspired by, because that’s really where I think the highest impact will be.”
Get involved: To learn more about Help a Mother Out and to donate, visit helpamotherout.com/donate.
