Well, I don’t know about you, but I am still trying to process that we have just slid into 2024! The pandemic affected many, in many ways but, the most profound for me seems to be the fact I can’t quite get over how much time has passed since that year!
Baby Godiva has been so busy, and we have so much to tell you all!
We have now supported our 2,400th family. I am beyond proud.
The families we support through our self-referral route, in the vast majority, are families that have a little too much month left at the end of their money. I huge, 92% of families supported, we only see requests from once or twice, before their life returns to an even keel. We have a small number that need support for a few weeks, or regularly for a few months, before returning to their lives knowing we will always be there if they need us.
We have a very small number of families, around 5% per year, that have enduring issues that just cannot be solved in the short term. Families that simply do not have enough money to support the material needs of their children, or themselves over an extended period. Through our assessment processes we identify the crisis support these families need and, through donations from the public and grants, we provide items until these families are back on their feet.
There is a misconception that poverty is a budgeting issue. That these families could simply not spend on frivolities and focus their monetary efforts on their children. There is an even bigger controversial opinion that these families should not have children if they are not in a financial position to support them. Well, opinions are like …….. belly buttons, everyone has one and sometimes they’re full of fluff!
I can assure you, the Daily Mail caricature of families on benefits spending their cash on TV channels, lashes and fake nails are not the demographic that Baby Godiva would support. We regularly see families in genuine need, and support them at their lowest times with compassion and dignity. Our rigorous processes and lived experience mean we recognise when there is vulnerability and seek to help the baby that will benefit from our donation. That caricature has never presented itself to us in the, nearly, 5 years we have been of Service in Coventry & Warwickshire. Maybe it’s time to retire the Vicky Pollard ideas? The only fake nails and augmented lashes you will find around here, belong to Laura and I!
Belle x
BABY GODIVA 