We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info
Former Gogglebox star Kate, 47, wants people to help those mothers who arrive with their children but little else than the clothes they stand up in. She is patron of the charity Baby Basics which is filling a warehouse in Sheffield with toys, bedding, feeding equipment and other necessities for distribution to 50 ‘baby banks’ around the UK.
The warehouse has already received almost 5,000 items and donors send the actual equipment rather than cash with items on the charity’s wishlist starting at £2.50.
Rev Kate said: “When we look at Ukraine and the desperate situation I feel ineffectual and totally useless, but Baby Basics are offering a way of meaningful response, so we can all feel like we are doing something practical to help.”
Their work is a light shining in a very dark situation.
“Baby Basics has organised a special Mother’s Day campaign. Mothering Sunday can be a tough day for lots of people, perhaps one way to reclaim it and bring joy into the sorrow is to buy a gift for another mum?”
Cat Ross, the CEO of baby Basics added: “There has been a huge wave of generosity in the UK with families and households coming forward to offer their homes to Ukrainian families in need, it’s been incredible.”
“As we know from watching the news night after night, the majority of those who have become refugees in Europe are mothers and children, who only have with them what they can carry.”
“Baby Basics helps to coordinate the effort to ensure gifts are matched with and delivered to the mothers who need them.”
The charity is working with another, the Sanctuary Foundation, which is helping to match UK hosts with Ukrainian refugees.
CEO Krish Kandiah, who recently returned from a trip to the border between Moldova and Ukraine, said: “These mums are leaving behind their brothers and husbands and dads, leaving them to fight the Russians”
“They don’t know if they’ll see them again but they’re getting the kids out to safety, they are making incredibly courageous journeys.”
“If Katie, 47, wants people to help those mothers who arrive with their children but little else than the clothes they stand up in.”
“If you come with only two suitcases and most of it is filled with your kid’s stuff and I’ve seen it at the border, you haven’t got a pram or a cot you haven’t got the basic things you need.”
“We think it is important that we stand with these women and make sure that when they arrive, their hosts have got everything they need to be able to support these mothers.”
“We are building stock so that as soon as people arrive and they haven’t got a pushchair or a car seat or a baby bottle, we can sort all that out.”
“Because it’s Mothering Sunday on Sunday we are all thinking about the role that mothers and mother-figures have played in our lives. These incredibly brave women, I met them on the border with Moldova, they do not want to leave Ukraine but they have to because it is not safe.”
“We have been given 5,000 items so far. People are buying things like toys for the kids, toiletries for the mums, pushchairs, prams and car seats, beds and bedding, cots and cot mattresses and stuff to do with feeding for the kids. “
“We’ve had lots of support already from the pram manufacturers Silver Cross the pram manufacturers and from Mamas & Papas.”
“My mother always used to say she did not want anything for Mother’s Day. I think this is a lovely way to remember the mother figures in our lives.”
To donate equipment to Baby Basics.
Source: Read Full Article
