As the realities of lockdown, holidays, home schooling, stock piling, and loss of work and income all hit home, hundreds of thousands of single parents fear they won't be able to feed their children or look after them if they get ill.

There are close to 2 million single parents across the UK. Many are just one pay packet away from financial crisis. Twice as many are more likely to be living in poverty compared to coupled households. That's before coronavirus. The impacts of dealing with the financial and practical effects of COVID-19 while also having sole responsibility for your own and your children's mental health are enormous.

Thats how Hannah Graham is feeling while in quarantine in Cheshire with her six-year-old son with additional needs and nine-year-old daughter.

Before COVID-19, single parents were already doing the job of two people as one of our Facebook contributors eloquently wrote. Read through our Facebook page and you will see stories of single parents genuinely terrified of not being able to feed their children or look after them if they get ill.

Demand for our services has soared since the crisis began and we need you to help us. £16,000 can fund additional advisors on our helpline and increase the support available through our online groups for six weeks.

Please make a donation today so we can reach more single parents who desperately need our help. We know we can reduce isolation, support mental health and put people in touch with practical help in their communities.

What we are trying to do

We saw calls to our helpline leap by 130% since the lockdown began. Our volunteer peer support group leaders are being inundated with cries for help in their communities. We are hearing heart-breaking stories.

Stories like the self-employed single mum who is leaving her 11-year-old asthmatic son on his own while she works the few cleaning shifts she still has left.

It is a stark choice.

She leaves him on his own and risks bringing the virus into the house by working. Or she doesn't earn a wage. There are no savings. She has an 87-year-old father, on his own. He relies on her, too.

Their family unit is usually a tightknit, mutually supportive, loving little ship. COVID-19 has ripped right through that. Without any of them being ill, yet. But they are all extremely vulnerable.

Her story is typical of the single parents reaching out to us even when the details differ.

This mother is now part of a daily single parents check in organised by her local Gingerbread peer support volunteer. A community of single parents who check in on each other every day and buy shopping and medicines for any families who cant get out.

Our amazing staff and volunteers are working round the clock offering a lifeline to the single parents out there struggling to manage on their own.

Your donation can make a real difference

£35 could run the helpline for an extra hour

£25 could fund an additional advisor for an hour

£10 could help us respond to more online enquiries

Please donate today so that we can answer more calls and help more single parents.

Why is this important?

Single parents are the overlooked vulnerable group in society. Gingerbread is the only charity supporting single parents in England. We have 100 years of expert knowledge, advice and campaigning under our belt.

At the moment, the impacts of COVID-19 mean that being a single parent is much tougher than usual. We are needed more than ever.

Please donate today to support our #SingleParentsEmergency appeal