11-05-2025
North Riverside Park Mall, area non-profit Gifts From Liam team up for diaper drive through May
North Riverside Park Mall is teaming up with the non-profit Gifts From Liam to collect diapers for families in need while honoring the life of one special little boy.
Anna Calix, founder and executive director of Gifts From Liam, and Jeanne Heller, marketing director for North Riverside Park Mall, joined Jewell Hillery on Sunday's WGN Weekend Morning News to talk about the diaper drive.
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Calix explained how she turned her personal tragedy into a way to help others in need and honor a son who died at birth.
'I was working in perinatal care when I got pregnant with my first child, and so I knew all the things about pregnancy and birth, and had a perfect, beautiful pregnancy,' Calix said. 'I had three baby showers. I had everything I needed to have the best possible outcome.
'And despite all of that, Liam died and was stillborn on his due date in 2016.'
As she grieved the loss of her son, Calix was struck by the fact that so many families struggle with obtaining basic necessities for babies, things she had gotten more than enough of during her pregnancy with Liam — like diapers.
'I knew that I would always have support with my child,' Calix said. 'I never was concerned about having a village to take care of him.
'… I really just wanted to do what I could to help other families in need, so I just started giving Liam's things away, his diapers and other items, just to help other families.'
Calix hosted a diaper drive on what would've been Liam's first birthday, and that led to the creation of Gifts From Liam.
'What's more essential in terms of material needs than a diaper?' Calix said. '… We got about 20,000 diapers in that very first year, and so I said, 'I guess this is what we need to do for Liam's birthday every year.''
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And North Riverside Park Mall is helping out, too.
Heller says the mall has been a 'community gathering place for 50 years,' so it was 'all-in' over the idea of collaborating with Gifts From Liam on a diaper drive. That's now become part of what the mall is doing for a fun Mother's Day initiative.
'We created kind of a fun thing for Mother's Day to get people to go around doing acts of kindness, just holding the door for a mother, or saying thank you to a security guard for keeping Mom safe,' Heller explains. 'They do five of those things on a bingo card, they can come back and get a crocheted rose.'
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Donating to the Gifts From Liam diaper drive also counts for that bingo card. But the diaper drive doesn't end on Mother's Day, as it runs through the end of the month.
Watch the attached video player to check out the full interview, and see below for more information:
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