Oxford Baby Bank needs your help!

Oxford Baby Bank is a new community organisation being set up to help support children and families in need across the Oxford community.

Many people will be aware that baby banks are springing up all over the country in much the same way as food banks. This involves baby clothing and equipment being collected from families who no longer need it. This is then distributed to women who are in substantial, and often emergency, need of help with caring for their babies. The women are referred to the baby bank by agencies like health visitors, community midwives, social workers, GPs, women’s refuges etc.

We are at the beginning of our journey, but due to the generosity of the community we have already collected a lot of good quality baby clothing from new-born to 12 months, and are distributing it via the midwives based at Florence Park. All of the clothing is currently being stored in our homes and we now really need a dedicated storage space so that we can increase our collections and therefore help more families in need. We would also like to accept donations of larger items such as cots, prams and highchairs. We have found premises on Cowley Road that will allow us to do this, but we need to raise funds in order to secure them.

In addition to our aim of supporting families to nurture their babies, we expressly wish to support front-line health care workers and social workers to respond quickly and effectively to the difficult situations that they come up against on a day to day basis. These staff encounter many circumstances where there is desperate need. This is stressful for them as they themselves seek to ensure good outcomes. We wish to offer them solutions.

Last but not least, a baby bank can underpin a sizeable community re-cycling effort. So much clothing and equipment is purchased on an annual basis that sadly then ends up in landfill. We can be part of a growing movement away from ‘new’ and towards a better and more healthy use of resources.

We would like to appeal to the generosity of the wider Oxford community for funds to kick start our endeavours, most urgently to fund monthly rent on storage premises, but also to purchase things like nappies, baby wipes, feeding bottles, new bedding and cot mattresses etc. We are also currently building a website so that we can maximise awareness of the baby bank.

PLEASE CONTRIBUTE A SMALL AMOUNT TO HELP US TO GET OUR JOURNEY STARTED AND WATCH THIS SPACE FOR NEWS OF OUR DEVELOPMENTS!

Thank you from us all,

Emily MacKeith (GP) , Caroline Barry (Psychologist) , Emma Poynton (Teacher), Sue Lingard (Social worker).

To find out more please visit our website at www.theoxfordbabybank.co.uk