Leeds Baby Bank, a charity that provides essentials like Moses baskets, prams, nappies and clothes to struggling families, has issued an urgent appeal for donations after an "unprecedented" 550 families in Leeds were helped since the start of June. Founder Chantal Nogbou said referrals from health and social care professionals had seen a "massive increase" in recent months, with numbers expected to climb as winter looms and people face the agonising choice between heating and, say, keeping a baby in clean nappies. "We get even more people needing help then because they want to put the heating on, but they still need to buy nappies and feed and clothe their child," she said, describing a scenario that apparently still qualifies as a surprise in 21st-century Britain.

Nogbou founded the charity in 2017 when she was a single parent of four children, including twins, and realised how many other families were struggling. Leeds Baby Bank will be 10 years old in January, and Nogbou said the profile of families needing support has shifted over time. "When we started, pre-Covid, maybe one in five children in Leeds lived in relative poverty," she explained. "Now, you're looking at one in two children in some parts, and that's just a shocking number that really shouldn't be happening." One in two. In some parts of Leeds. That is not a statistic so much as a cry for help.

About 70% of the children the charity helps have a parent who is working, Nogbou said, and many are "not managing to manage the bills with energy and fuel prices going up". According to government statistics, 27% of children in the Yorkshire and Humber region live in relative low income families - the joint highest proportion in the country alongside the West Midlands. A relative low income family is one living on less than 60% of the median national household income for that year. So, to recap: working parents, rising bills, and a country where the safety net is apparently made of Moses basket mattresses.

The rise in referrals has brought more financial challenges for the charity itself, especially after moving from a city centre office to a larger and more accessible building in Armley that can provide more services. "All that has cost money and obviously bills for us have also gone up when it comes to the utilities, so it's definitely a scary thing as a charity," Nogbou said. The charity needs to raise £60,000 for new premises, because apparently even the organisations cleaning up after austerity need to pay the leccy.

Nogbou added that donations of items and money from the community have kept the charity going. "It's the people that, instead of buying a coffee every day, set up a direct debit and send £5 to Leeds Baby Bank every month," she said. "That £5 can buy something like a brand new mattress for a Moses basket." So if you have a spare fiver and a conscience that pings occasionally, you know where to send it.