The San Diego Real Diaper Circle teamed up this past weekend with the San Diego Babywearing groups to staff a Mothering Magazine booth at the BabyTime Expo in San Diego.  Over the course of two days, a dozen volunteers exposed hundreds of parents to cloth diapering.  Many attendees hadn’t seen cloth diapers in person before and were excited about the possibilities available to them.  Folks who were reticent at first became intrigued upon hearing about the financial savings they could realize.  And when Circle members demonstrated the easy washing and care routine, they were sold.  In addition to complimentary copies of Mothering magazine, volunteers handed out brochures about cloth diapering, including a list of upcoming meetings and a link to the group’s website.

This is the third major public event that the group has done so far.  With a couple of new volunteer Leaders in training, the San Diego Real Diaper Circle hopes to further expand their outreach efforts and get even more SoCal babies into cloth diapers in the coming year!

Recently, the Real Diaper Association accredited Angela Domenichelli of Belfast, Maine as a Real Diaper Circle Leader.  She held her first Real Diaper Circle meeting in a local midwife’s office.  They discussed diapering while traveling, rashes, night time diapering, why they chose cloth, potty learning & Elimination Communication, asthma & diapers, diaper systems, and cloth diaper advocacy.

The next meeting will include a diaper show & tell, tips for washing & stain removal, and comparisons about the life of various diaper components.

If you’re in the Waldo County area, contact rda@maine.usa.com for more information.  Keep up the good work, Angela!

The Real Diaper Association is proud to introduce our newest Real Diaper Circle Leader, Elizabeth Wickoren of the Twin Cities, Minnesota!

Elizabeth has been working in cloth diaper advocacy for a while already.  She founded a non-profit called Teeny Greenies that lends a day’s worth of cloth diapers to anyone in the local community who is interested in trying cloth diapering. The focus of Teeny Greenies is getting diapers in people’s hands and homes to try them out.

Her focus for the Real Diaper Circle of the Twin Cities is on creating a place for cloth diapering parents to meet others and exchange information and support. It will also be a way for new local families to explore and learn about cloth diapering.

The two organizations should complement each other nicely and, together, put a lot more Twin Cities babies in cloth diapers!

As a CPA currently working as a full-time mom to my twin girls, I have really enjoyed being able to put my accounting skills to use for the Real Diaper Association for a cause I am so passionate about. As the new Treasurer, I was very excited that right from my first meeting I was able to help out by researching a couple of tax related cloth diapering topics.

The first of these issues was whether or not parents had any support for deducting the cost of cloth diapers. It turns out that the issue is pretty clear cut and some very specific rules exist.  If cloth diapers have been prescribed for the “treatment of a disease”, then parents can pay for them with funds from their flexible spending accounts or take their cost as  medical expense deduction. I got this information from IRS’s  Publication 502, “Medical and Dental Expenses”. Anyone who would like more information can find this publication at irs.gov or should discuss this with the tax adviser or plan administrator. We’ll be adding this information to our Real Diaper Facts at realdiaperassociation.org to help make parents aware of this potential tax savings if they’re in this situation.

I hope this will be the first of many opportunities I’ll have to share (what I hope is) helpful tips with other cloth diapering parents.

As my family continues to evaluate how we can live more responsibly and at a lower cost, we are constantly reminded of how well cloth diapering fits with these goals. We’ve taken this message to friends and family and, through the San Diego Real Diaper Circle, to our community. I am now tremendously proud to work with RDA to take the message even further!

RDA member volunteers, and especially the Board of Directors, have already done so much to advance our mission of getting more babies into cloth diapers. But in the current environment, I believe we have a special opportunity, and responsibility, to do even more. Families are looking for leads on how to live in these changing times and we have a great answer for them.

To get the message out, though, I’m going to need your help! In the coming weeks and months, I plan to begin tapping some of you to assist on various projects for RDA. If you have ideas on something you can do now, please contact me - I look forward to working closely with many of you.

Additionally, we need to grow our membership to support our work and take advantage of every opportunity. Please spread the word about RDA and encourage your friends and business partners to join our efforts.

I will keep you updated on our progress and successes. Thank you for your continued support and for joining with me to help this movement flourish!

The Real Diaper Association was invited to attend the King County Fair in Enumclaw, Washington for the entire 3 days of July 18th, 19th & 20th. In 2008, King County decided to “go green”, and wanted RDA present - and of course, we said yes!

The KCF green theme echoed throughout the grounds, and everything from rain catchment for recycling water, to Park Rangers speaking of wildlife environment, to stainless steel water bottles were present. This made it a wonderful setup to advocate for reusable, real cloth diapers.

The response from fairgoers was so exuberant, I decided to take video shorts to compile why they chose cloth.

During the fair we met many wonderful people, including the founder of Sew Up Seattle, who helped RDA get in touch with Goods for the Planet, so we now have a new location for diaper circles right in downtown Seattle.

We even had a chance to see Tom Watson, King County Solid Waste Division Manager! He has been a partner and supporter of RDA for many years, and includes cloth diapers in his presentations regarding solid waste.

It was a wonderful fair, and thank you to all those that stopped by to share and learn!

Excited to go back next year,

Maya
Board member, Real Diaper Association
Real Diaper Circle Leader since 2004
Organizing advocates and activists for cloth diapering
www.oceanasoul.com/rda.htm

The new San Diego Real Diaper Circle hosted a hugely successful booth at the San Diego EarthFair 2008 on April 20th. We had a beautiful day and the fair was very well attended. Our prime location in the Children’s Area drew a lot of visitors to our booth.

Over the course of the day, ten volunteers (and several experienced visitors) spoke with hundreds of potential cloth-diaperers, answering questions, showing off a wide variety of diapers, and demonstrating various aspects of cloth diaper use and care. Thanks to the generous donations of several local suppliers, we were even able to change a number of babies out of disposables and put them in cloth on the spot! We supplied visitors with general information about cloth diapering (provided by the Real Diaper Association), a copy of the Cloth Diaper Comeback issue of Mothering Magazine, coupons from local retailers, and a San Diego-specific Local Resources Guide.

- Heather McNamara, San Diego Real Diaper Circle Leader, http://sdrealdiapercircle.weebly.com.

San Diego’s vibrant community of cloth diaperers are forming a new local Real Diaper Circle. Our first event was a hugely successful booth at the San Diego EarthFair 2008. We have formed an online community, and have a schedule of upcoming meetings throughout San Diego County where experienced cloth-diaperers can share their knowledge with each other as well as with new or potential cloth users.

- Heather McNamara, San Diego Real Diaper Circle Leader http://sdrealdiapercircle.weebly.com.

Following a hugely successful presence at the San Diego Earth Fair 2008, the new San Diego Real Diaper Circle kicks off meetings this week. The first meeting will be held at Java Mama on Thursday, 5/1, at 9am . Java Mama is a child-friendly café with a specially-designed play area, located at 8250 La Mesa Blvd., La Mesa, CA 91941. In addition to the upcoming central San Diego meetings at Java Mama, regular meetings will also be held in North County. The varied schedule (constructed to accommodate as much participation as possible) can be found at http://sdrealdiapercircle.weebly.com, or by joining our Circle at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sdrealdiapercircle.

Have you seen the latest issue (March 2008) of Mothering Magazine? It is an issue dedicated to cloth diapers with a headline on the front cover - CLOTH DIAPER COMEBACK.

“Cloth diapers are easier, cheaper, more convenient, and less wasteful than disposables. Find out why in ‘Dumping Disposable Diapers’ and ‘The ABCs of Going Cloth,’ two complementary articles in the March-April 2008 issue of Mothering magazine that outline how to make a smooth transition to cloth.”

“Join Mothering at the Seattle Green Festival, April 12 & 13th. Visit our booth in the Kids Zone and learn about the practical aspects of cloth diapering from The Real Diaper Association. Subscribe to our print or digital edition at the festival and enter to win a Cloth Diaper Kit.”