The Baby Bank helps families in need by providing essential items such as nappies, formula, cots and clothing. They also help with special occasions like celebrating birthdays, and more recently they have been providing activity packs for families struggling during Covid-19 school closures. They take referrals from partners such as charities, Social Services and Health Visitors and during the pandemic they have seen demand more than double. They have helped over 2000 families so far this year.

This was our second mission to help The Baby Bank and it was great to be back. They currently only have two regular volunteers, who are both also juggling their own children and work, so there was plenty to do. We were welcomed by Trustee and volunteer Lauren and her lovely son, who was incredibly knowledgeable and helpful.

Claire packed up bags of baby toiletries ready to be sent out to families, completing the job in about an hour. She then joined Amy, Michelle and Paul, who were sorting bags of clothes from the mountain of donations.

We were sorting by size and condition, separating out anything stained, too worn, or just plain odd (socks!) to be included in the bundles that will be prepared for local babies and children in need. The discarded items are not sent to landfill but used by other charities or for rags. Some of the clothes were ridiculously cute, and we agreed we clearly need to update our own wardrobes to keep up with all the stylish littl'uns out there.

Wear and tear can be hard to spot, so the process can't be rushed. Progress is measured in baby steps, but the mountain is now definitely more of a plateau, so well done team!

Extra kudos to Paul, as this evening marked his first GoodGym good deed. Whoop whoop!

Between us we ran 26km on our journeys to and from this community mission. Thanks to Michelle, who joined Amy for an explore of the paths around Strand Water and North Town Moor on the way home.