A BABY bank giving out baby and menstrual products has found support from a national knitting group.
The Witney Baby Bank has been operating for just over a month, providing vulnerable families in the town with crucial essentials.
It recently started receiving knitted donations from the Warm Baby Project, an army of knitters from across the country.
District and town councillor Rosa Bolger has been instrumental in setting up the baby bank.
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She said: “It came from a need in the community, a need that has always been there but has been heightened during the pandemic.
“A friend of mine had created the Birmingham baby bank and I thought there was a need for it in Witney too.
“It’s going really well, we’ve had a lot of support from Home-Start, which is a great organisation and has put us in touch with families who need us most.”
Home-Start is a family support charity which provides practical and emotional support to vulnerable families with young children.
“Families have also been approaching us so it’s been great to help find families who need our support,” added Ms Bolger.
“Since starting the service it’s startlingly obvious how many families need this extra support and it is utterly heart warming to see the number of volunteers coming forward, offering their time and generous donations.
“We’ve been giving out the bare essentials as it’s really important to focus on them so we can help as many people as possible.”
The packs include nappies, wipes, formula and menstrual products.
Also in them is knitted products from the Warm Baby Project, which has provided knitted cardigans, blankets and teddy bears.
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Ms Bolger explained that the group got in touch wanting to help and subsequently sent ‘boxes and boxes’ of knitted products.
Olivia Cundell, who founded the project in 2018, said: “We know baby banks are being hit hard so our knitters are stockpiling ready to send to wherever needs it.
“There’s definitely been an increase in activity during coronavirus, our knitters have been saying it’s saved them as it’s given them something to do and helped their mental health.
“The whole project is people wanting to help other people.”
Ms Bolger continued: “We’ve probably got 10 families who we’re supplying on a regular basis with more coming in all the time and some who we have provided one off support to.
“We’re just delivering in Witney at the moment but we’re not strict on it.
“I like the idea of branching out further but we’d need more volunteers and resources for this.”
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So far, the bank has been based at Cogges pre-school however with children returning there on Monday, the group is now based at Cogges Parish.
“We’ve got a great group of volunteers and there’s a core group of us including former mayor Duncan and the new mayor Joy, and we’ve had support from Blenheim too who have given us loads of bags to keep the products in,” said Ms Bolger.
The baby bank is open for support and donations from 10am-12pm every Monday.
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