On an ordinary afternoon this winter, ShareBaby processed its 10-millionth diaper.

It was a big deal, but every diaper has been since the nonprofit started a decade ago to meet the basic needs of Baltimore’s most vulnerable families.

“I’m not a woo-woo kind of person,” says Nadya Dutchin, the organization’s new executive director, who started in July, “but I’m like, ‘The numbers are lining up—and the universe!’ Because that’s what it feels like—10 million diapers and a 10-year anniversary.”

For Dutchin, who previously ran the American Humanist Association in Washington, D.C., and has lived in Baltimore for eight years, landing at ShareBaby felt like coming full circle. She arrived not just with the requisite skills, like a knack for fundraising, but a personal connection, too.

“I’ve been where these parents have been,” says Dutchin, pictured above, who got pregnant a few years after college. She had a decent job but still couldn’t afford all the basic necessities, plus day care—so “my sisters and good friends gave me nearly everything.”

When her daughter suddenly passed away a week after she was born, Dutchin was devastated but wanted something positive to come out of her profound grief. She tried to donate the items that filled the nursery, but no such place existed.

Now, every day, she gets to be part of the solution, with 60-some distribution partners that provide diapers and wipes at no cost—surprisingly, you can’t use SNAP or WIC to purchase them—as well as other nearly new items, like car seats, strollers, and clothing, to relieve the burden of so many families throughout the city.

Dutchin, who now has a healthy 10-year-old daughter, doesn’t like to use the word charity, instead calling ShareBaby a “mutual aid organization,” with parents happy to know that their beloved belongings are going to good use rather than ending up in a landfill.

“These are families standing in solidarity with other families,” she says.

And this next year is all about celebrating ShareBaby’s history but also strategic, long-term planning and growth for its future. Currently, their 9,000-square-foot warehouse on Union Avenue in Woodberry is big enough and has received recent upgrades, but Dutchin sees demand beyond city limits.

Gentrification is “pushing folks out into the county and the need is growing there,” she says. “But we can’t get to them yet because we’re still trying to meet the need here.”

Which is a thought that’s constantly on her mind: How do we help everyone? “We’ve got to take care of the kids,” says Dutchin. “We have an obligation to take care of our little people, all of us do.”

Ask people to name an essential item, and they’ll probably rattle off things like food, water, or shelter. That is to say, diapers might not be the first thing to come to mind, says ShareBaby executive director Amina Osman Weiskerger, whose job it is to convey that as much as possible.

“The Diaper Lady,” she says, “That’s what everyone calls me.”

We can see why. On a bright spring afternoon, we’re in the parking lot—not even yet inside the 9,000-square-foot warehouse in Hampden-Woodberry that houses the nonprofit that Weiskerger runs—and she is already getting right to the point about her organization’s mission.

“What we’re really doing is combatting material insecurity,” she says, standing in heels on the asphalt near the Light Rail tracks and beneath the Jones Falls Expressway toward the bottom of TV Hill. “There’s been so much research done that shows having the essentials has a huge impact on mental health, physical health, and the overall well-being of a family.”

Inside the concrete warehouse, stacks of plastic-wrapped bundled diapers—some donated by parents whose kids outgrew them, others purchased through wholesale partnerships—fill the aisles of Costco-style shelves.

They’re bound for the roughly 25,000 newborns and toddlers in Baltimore City that live in poverty, according to Weiskerger, citing the most recent census. “That’s our target population,” she says.

As she speaks, program director Eliseba Osore—one of ShareBaby’s three full-time employees—sorts a donation from retailer Old Navy of girls’ glitter-adorned shoes on a stainless-steel table.

Although the group’s primary focus is diapers, they also provide children’s shoes, clothing, and other essentials. And on a nearby wall, dozens of color-coded, age-labeled plastic bins stand out amid the white walls and gray floor. Weiskerger pulls a clear Ziploc bag from one of the bins. It’s stuffed with baby clothes for a 3-year-old boy.

“This has bottoms, tops, jacket, socks,” she says. “It’s all ready, take it.”

Weiskerger, a former fundraising director for Teach for America, legislative director for former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and a mother of two, is not actually suggesting we leave with the clothes, but is illustrating the idea behind this massive space and the nonprofit ShareBaby in general.

What began in 2014 as a passion project of a trio of moms—Park School friends Maya Ammons and Kate Mumaw and McDonogh alum Kristin Finkelstein—who started off donating new and gently used baby items to city homeless shelters, has since grown into Baltimore City’s de facto diaper bank, and a bit more.

Weiskerger came on board in January 2016 and, to date, ShareBaby has raised enough money and collected enough donations to buy and distribute more than 4.5 million diapers and 1.3 million other childcare items (be it clothes, creams, books, strollers, or high-chairs) across Baltimore.

Weiskerger, Osore, warehouse coordinator Tonya Bond, and a handful of volunteers gave out 3.3 million items total in 2020 alone, as the pandemic increased an already established need for necessities.

“You can’t drop your child off at daycare without disposable diapers,” says Weiskerger. “You can’t wash cloth diapers in public laundry facilities. I try to tell people diapers are something you are reminded of five, six, or seven times a day, if you don’t have them and your baby’s crying over and over again. It’s literally this layer of anxiety and stress for families when they don’t have what they need for their kids.”

To date, the organization has over 50 distribution hubs in key low-income areas of the city. Their warehouse off Union Avenue is also a nerve center of sorts for area charities, even before the pandemic. In addition to being a place where anyone can donate items, usually on Wednesdays and some weekends, people from other charitable organizations around Baltimore visit for “shopping days” once a week to pick up diapers, baby wipes, clothes, or anything else they might need.

Even the Baltimore City Health Department gave ShareBaby more than $180,000. The state gave $25,000, too. It was enough to help at least 10,000 children in the city over a two-month period. And, since then, ShareBaby has given away thousands of diapers monthly in various distressed neighborhoods like Park Heights, Curtis Bay, and Cherry Hill.

“We are biologically programmed to take care of our children,” Weiskerger says, “and when we can’t perform that function, it has major implications. It’s our job to keep bringing this very real issue to light. We’re talking about really critical, essential things. A child needs a place to sleep. They need clothes that fit them and keep them warm. They need diapers.”

Chad Gauss might be best known as the brains behind local dining destinations The Food Market and La Food Marketa, but he is also passionate about giving back to the community—whether hosting dinners benefitting No Kid Hungry or serving on the board of the Hampden Family Center.

“All I really want to do is see people happy,” he says. “And food is communal by nature. We like hospitality just as much as we like food and service.”

To further his hospitable mission, the chef is hosting Tacopalooza, an outdoor fiesta at La Food Marketa on Monday, July 3 from 5-10 p.m. The party will benefit ShareBaby, a local organization that collects diapers, clothing, and other infant supplies for families in need throughout Baltimore City. As a father of three, Gauss says that the cause hits close to home.

“When it comes to charities, children are the most important because they’re absolutely helpless,” he says. “You’re born with the demand to have someone take care of you, and every baby should have the opportunity to have those needs fulfilled.”

ShareBaby will receive a portion of the proceeds from the event’s all-inclusive tickets, which offer guests eats, drinks, live DJ entertainment, a photo booth, and fun raffle prizes like a piñata stuffed with gift cards.

The event will be the first of its kind at the restaurant, which opened at Pikesville’s Shops at Quarry Lake last fall. Gauss says that it will have a summer block party-inspired feel, with food stations inside, passed drinks on the patio, and outdoor entertainment on a sectioned-off portion of the street.

“It’s just meant to be a big party,” he adds. “It will be a great time for people to relax and enjoy being outside.”

Guests are invited to dance to Latin house music spun by DJ Tanz, sip house margaritas, mojitos, and sangrias, and, of course, dig in to bottomless tacos. As the event’s name suggests, the evening’s menu will feature tortillas filled with everything from chicken and steak to turkey chorizo and lamb neck. There will also be plenty of chips and dip, and even a charcoal grill cooking whole fish, charred octopus, and other meats.

Aside from supporting the cause, Gauss is enthusiastic about using the restaurant as a venue to bring the community together.

“I’m just excited for everyone to come and hang out, enjoy, and know that life is good,” he says. “It will be a break from the world that night.”