By Thomas Carter
Volunteers at Leicestershire charity the Harborough Hygiene Bank [part of the national organisation] delivered luxury care packages to 40 mums in a Mother’s Day campaign over the last month.
The charity, which works to provide families who suffer from hygiene poverty with essential health items, ran a donation drive to give struggling mothers luxury items including make-up and hair care products.
Judy Rowley, the co-ordinator for the Harborough Hygiene Bank, said: “The aim of the project is to support people who fall into hygiene poverty, perhaps because they are in low paid irregular work, they lost their job and haven’t yet been able to find another, or they are caring for someone so are unable to work [among other reasons].
“What hygiene poverty means is that people are making choices between paying their rent, buying food for themselves (and their family), paying their utility bills, and paying to keep themselves clean and in good health.
“This leads to much anxiety and stress, as well as loss of self confidence, and may affect a person’s ability to get a job because they can’t afford to make themselves look smart and clean.
“Also it can lead to health issues, and this has become worse with the effects of Covid-19.”
Since opening in June 2020 the branch has helped many families, delivering 100 care item packages over the Christmas period and more than 70 product bags in the last three months, as well as having now set up an online Crowdfunder for donations.
“People have been extraordinarily generous over the nine months we have been established. Where Crowdfunder comes into this is because we have applied for an Aviva grant, which can give us the funds to enable us to expand and help even more people in need,” Judy added.
For more information and to donate to the great work done by the Harborough Hygiene Bank, go to https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/tackling-hygiene-poverty-in-harborough or find @thbharborough across all social media platforms.
