Little Helping Hands is a baby bank, whereby we collect donations of second hand baby items such as clothing, toiletries and basic equipment. These items are then distributed to families within Tadcaster, Selby and York who have been identified as needing support by health and social professionals.

We started operating in February 2021 and since then we have helped over 100 families through our referral system and approximately 40 families at our drop-in events. We have seen a much bigger demand for our services over the past couple of months due to the cost of living crisis, and I can only imagine this increasing. Many of the families using our services are reliant on what we do, as we have many families who stay on our radar and most of the families who use our drop-in event return each month. We have also seen a new demographic of families using our services over the past 4 / 5 months , many of whom are young professionals, struggling with rising costs and the demands on life.

We are slightly different to many other babybanks, in that we offer the opportunity for those who are not able to get a referral, to still get the support we offer. This is done through our monthly drop-in events. We started running our drop in events in June 2021 and they have become a key date in our calendar! After realising that not everyone who needs our support will be on the radar of the health and social workers, we wanted to be as accessible to all our families within the community as much as possible.

With the number of children from low income families on the rise and the cost of living crisis impacting this number drastically, I believe that giving children the opportunity to have the best start in life will have a huge impact in helping them to reach their potential. Little Helping Hands' aim is to help local families who are struggling financially, emotionally or due to circumstances beyond their control.