As a Young Mum once upon a time, our Founder was lucky enough to have some support from her family when she gave birth to her twin girls, just over two decades ago. The support that she received was not a financial one, although the help with looking after her children when she needed to work/have a break, was very much appreciated to her, back then when looking after her twins was very much of a difficult challenge. This support enabled her to find her feet, get back into her studies and work to be able to provide for her children.
As the years went on, our Founder realised how fortunate she was back then to have such support from her family, as when she came across other Young Mums, she noticed that they did not have much - if any family support at all. The idea of looking for ways to help other Young Mums had suddenly become a secret passion of hers. Over the years, our Founder helped support mothers and children through giving money, supporting like-minded charities, helping with University fees and so on.
Having done this, our Founder felt that she just was not doing enough and that there was so much more to do, but did not feel that she had the capacity to achieve her hearts desires to support this particular group of mothers and their children, so she decided to volunteer at some Food Banks and research on how the Baby Banks operate. This way of giving back was what helped shape the way our Founder formulated a strategy to create something similar for Young Mums, to collect donations from maternity wear, to nappies, milk, clothes, shoes, toys, high-chairs, prams, cots and more! Allowing Young Mums to collect 'what they need', rather than pre-packing any items that could potentially go to waste! Alongside this, our Founder created what we call our 'Free Loan System'. This enables larger items such as prams, high-chairs, cots and so on, to be available for FREE, for the time in which is required by our Young Mum, then returned to then provide for another family and so on. This method of providing support ensures there to be less wastage from the larger items and reduces the likelihood of such items being thrown away.
In addition to the above, our initiative aims to provide ongoing mentoring support, discussions and workshops by women in various industries, to help encourage our Young Mums to achieve their dreams, despite their personal circumstances. We hope to achieve this extra support through our 3-5 year plan for each individual.
We have been receiving a positive reaction from individuals, other parents, organisations and the local communities as a whole. We have been storing and distributing items through local libraries, who have been fantastic with the support that they have been providing, although through our growth, we are struggling for storage space and need to relocate to larger storage/distribution facilities.
We have now come to the point where we are focusing on furthering our reach to as many Young Mums as we can. Though we try our best to provide what our Young Mums need, we do not always have in stock their essential requirements. Therefore, we need your help to support our cause. We are aiming to reach 10,000 people who can donate at least £10 each, to help us achieve our goal of £100,000.
Your impact would help support the following examples:
- £10 could provide support for a pack of milk / nappies.
- £20 could provide support for some cot blankets.
- £30 could provide support for some simple maternity wear.
- £40 could provide support for a high chair.
- £50 could provide support for a baby bouncer.
- £100 could provide support for a basic cot.
- £500 could provide support towards fuel costs for our volunteers, who collect donations for the cause.
- £1000 could provide support towards a monthly storage facility.
We appreciate every act of kindness, no matter how small and thank you very much for all your physical and monetary donations.
If you are a Young Mum yourself who is looking for support for yourself and your child(ren), please contact us by filling out our online form here: https://www.brondesburymums.com/young-mums