Yes, YOU, you right there, reading this site. Do you have five cents? Your five cents can SAVE A LIFE. WOW, right? In poor countries like Angola, women give birth on dirt floors and then their umbilical cords are cut with knives made from a piece of sugarcane pulled right out of the ground. Do you know what lives in dirt? TETANUS. In this country, we get vaccinated against tetanus as infants, and then booster shots if we get cut on something. These poor women who have their umbilical cords cut with dirty knives don’t have that, unless WE HELP. By the way, once a mother or newborn gets tetanus, they are going to die. Painfully. It causes excruciating muscle spasms and renders them unable to eat or drink, and then they die. The video I watched during the UNICEF presentation in Cincinnati was agonizing. But it also made me hopeful because I CAN HELP. I have five cents.

There are a few ways you can help- one is by clicking the widget in this post and in my sidebar and donating what you can. Yes, even one dollar, because that buys twenty vaccines. You can also buy specially marked packages of Pampers, look for the 1 pack = 1 vaccine sticker on the package. Don’t need diapers? Do you have a friend or family member who is pregnant? Does your nursery at church keep diapers stocked for infants? What about your local daycare center or women’s shelter?

Now, I asked the PRESIDENT of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF this question during her presentation- how do I know for SURE that my purchase of a pack of diapers or my donation to the Pampers/UNICEF fund will REALLY be used to buy a vaccine? How do I know the money won’t go to some corrupt government? Her answer? UNICEF does not work with governments. They work with NGOs, non-governmental organizations. They send a UNICEF employee to a country, and that person takes up residence there. They get to know the people in their village, they meet local leaders, they gain trust. THEN they help these organizations set up programs, clinics, whatever they need. So, for example, Pampers worked with UNICEF to set up the vaccination program, and the money that is donated goes directly to those non-governmental organizations to be spent on purchasing vaccines.

I hardly have the words to tell you what it means to me to have been invited to sit in the room with the President of UNICEF and ask her questions about her job. I also want you to know that the people who work for Pampers? Are absolutely AMAZING. When you think about a giant multinational corporation, you probably think about a bunch of men in suits sitting in offices making all the decisions, right? Well, in the case of Pampers, that couldn’t be further from the truth. One concept that we heard again and again is that products at Pampers are developed from listening to people’s stories.

The Moms on the Pampers Testing Panel who bring in their babies, diaper them, then talk to a Pampers employee about how the diaper feels and fits, they are helping develop diapers. The people in Brazil and China and Germany who see a Pampers employee in their grocery store demonstrating diapers tell them how much they appreciate being able to sleep longer at night because Pampers holds in wetness better than other brands. And the Moms in countries like Angola? Are grateful beyond words that their babies are actually surviving being born now that there are tetanus vaccines becoming available.

Click the widget below and you’ll go to a donation page where you can print out a tax receipt immediately. Pampers will track the donations that come through this widget, so we can see how well we’re doing to support the cause. Of all the things I have ever done with this blog, asking my readers to help UNICEF reach their goal of enough vaccines so that NO BABY EVER HAS TO DIE from tetanus has to be one of the most important. Five cents, people. Oh, and at the end of the presentation when we were told that Pampers had donated one thousand vaccines in each of our names to UNICEF, I started to cry. There are 1,000 vaccination shots headed to some village somewhere because of ME. For that, I am humbled and grateful. Please, now, click.

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I got picked up in a black SUV on Monday morning for the four minute drive to the airport-hey, nothing wrong with traveling in style even for four minutes, right? My flight to Cincinnati was quick and easy, and when I landed and made my way to baggage claim, I found Amanda from Paine PR standing at the bottom of the escalator holding a “Welcome Mommy Bloggers” sign! I also found Elizabeth from Busy Mom waiting with her, we always enjoy seeing each other. We waited until Christine from Boston Mamas and Erica from Yummy Mummy Club arrived, then we were put into another big black SUV for the ride to the Westin Cincinnati. I love staying in Westins because of the Heavenly Beds and because they have the best staff of any hotel chain I’ve ever been in. Plus, this one had a Starbucks in the lobby, and you know how I love my coffee drinks!

After dropping my things off in my room and calling Chris, I went down to Erica’s room where she was doing short interviews with everyone for her site, she recorded me with her camcorder talking (and talking) about blogging, which is a subject I never get tired of discussing! Then Elizabeth and I went down to the lobby and had lunch before freshening up and changing into dinner clothes. While waiting in the lobby to leave for P & G, I met the rest of the participants in this event-Amanda from Petite Mommy and Contest for Moms, Kailani from An Island Life and Island Reviews, Lisa from My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings and Lisa Reviews, Romi from True Mom Confessions, Heather from Lil Sugar, Amanda from Oh, Amanda, Karen from Thrifty Mommy, Isabel from AlphaMom, Stacy from MomCentral, plus me, Elizabeth (Busy Mom), Christine and Erica. 13 bloggers, and my room was on the 13th floor of the hotel! Maybe 13 is a lucky number for me!

We were taken over to one of the many Proctor & Gamble buildings, this one was just a block or two from the hotel, and it houses the P & G archives. Edward Rider runs the Corporate Archives, and this is a tour that is not open to the public, it’s VIPs only, so we were thrilled to get a peek at this special collection of P & G items. Plus they had sodas, fruit, veggies and cheese for us to munch on.

The P & G archives has products from the entire history of the company, including print advertising and original products going back to the early 1900s. In 1961, a pack of 15 Pampers diapers cost 89 cents! We were allowed to take pictures and I took a whole bunch which I will get up on Flickr as soon as the Flickr Uploader stops being a pain in my behind and lets me actually do the uploads. I also snagged a free book about the history of the branding of P & G which I am looking forward to reading.

From there we were driven again in our convoy of black SUVs to Newport, Kentucky which is just a short drive and over a bridge, to Brio Tuscan Grille. They had a special menu with “Pampers Mommy Bloggers” written on it, with salads and entrees we could choose from. First we had appetizers, delicious shrimp wrapped in bacon, chicken salad on crostini, and asparagus wrapped in prosciutto. They also had yummy cocktails, mine was a blue raspberry martini and it was so good. I had a chopped salad and then spaghetti pomodoro which I thought was quite good. For dessert they brought out espresso mugs filled with tiramisu, cheesecake, creme brulee, and a chocolate fudge with whipped cream (my choice!). We ate until we couldn’t eat any more and talked and talked and talked. I also took a bunch of photos which will, again, be up on Flickr when I can get it to work.

We then went back to the hotel, I tried to get online but I could not get the Ethernet cable in the room to give me a signal, and none of the free wifi being broadcast would give me a connection either. It was so frustrating because Lisa came to my room with her laptop and got a connection right away. We shared her laptop for a little while but by 12:30 am I was exhausted so I said goodnight to her, crawled into the Heavenly Bed, and fell sound asleep.

I’ll post more later today, I have so much more to tell you from our sessions on Tuesday. In the meantime, I want you to do me a favor-if you buy diapers, please look for Pampers diapers that have a sticker on the package that says “1 pack = 1 vaccine”, and buy those over a package with no sticker. For every pack you buy, Pampers donates the five cents that it costs to buy a tetanus vaccine for a child in a country where tetanus still kills mothers and babies at an alarming rate. I was SHOCKED that FIVE CENTS is all it takes to buy one vaccine. I plan to start using change and bottle return money and sending in regular donations, and we will be creating a sidebar widget as well that you can use to donate. FIVE CENTS, people. I am willing to bet you have five cents laying around somewhere, right? It’s such a miniscule amount of money, but it can make SUCH a huge difference in the life of a baby.

I’ve got SEVEN pages of notes I took yesterday and I will be telling you a whole lot more about Proctor & Gamble, Pampers, and their partnership with UNICEF to work to eradicate tetanus altogether. You will never look at five cents the same way again, I promise. Good night!

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