Kiwanis rally to help Hospital del Nino

DON'T BE SURPRISED if you are greeted at your local supermarket on Saturday, March 5 by Kiwanis Club civic volunteers and crisp white-clad nurses collecting disposable diapers for  the Hospital del Nino 

This is an annual event all most of the major supermarket chains sign on for the effort to help the hospital meet the need for over a half million Pampers, Huggies, Luvs and other brands of diapers each year .

Mark Scheinbaum, president elect of the Panama Canal Kiwanis Club told Newsroom Panama, "I think people assume that the diapers are only needed for patients in an already overcrowded institution. While this is true, there are many more families using the outpatient clinics each day than children admitted as patients.
"The cost of diapers has become so high that many families leaving the clinic with a baby do not have funds for the proper hygiene of frequently changed diapers, so the Hospital tries to give moms at least a small supply of diapers to take with them."
Two years ago Kiwanians in the Woodlands section of Houston, Texas with the help of the owner of the Houston Astros baseball team, shipped 86,000 diapers to Panama. The hope is that domestically in Panama there will be record numbers of donations.
Collection locations will be atstores in Paitilla, Coronado, Costa del Este, El Dorado, San Francisco and elsewhere. Scheinbaum said his club would be at El Rey on Calle 50 in San Francisco from 9 am until 7 pm where they will also have information about the Kiwanis Kermes street game festival May 24-25 at Parque Andres Bellow