A baby bank founder has been “overwhelmed” by public support following a heartbreaking plea to help a mother feed her young son.

Grandmother Bernadette Murphy, who runs a baby bank in her small village of Cleland, North Lanarkshire, posted an emotional plea for help on Saturday after a desperate mother came to her.

“She was just a poor soul,” says Bernadette. “Her little boy was only two years old and she’d been hit with four months of benefits sanctions.

“She’d left her house at 7.30am that morning and had been walking around from agency to agency pleading for help.

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“She was running low on nappies and had very little food and didn’t know what to do.

“As a last resort she came to me after the Citizens Advice Bureau told her to call me.”

The 26-year-old mother’s situation was so desperate, says Bernadette, that she had gone without sanitary towels to buy what she could to feed her son.

“She had gone to a public bathroom to get a wad of toilet roll instead,” says Bernadette. “It was utterly heartbreaking.

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“I was desperate to help her but the baby bank only has clothes and milk for very young babies, I didn’t have anything to give her.”

While determined to nip to a shop to buy what she could for the young woman herself, Bernadette, 55, also recorded a short video message and posted it on her Facebook page, hoping others would help.

Within an hour, 200 people had responded offering items. The video has since received 27,000 views with offers of support flying in from as far afield as America.

“I just turned my phone around, started talking and posted it,” says Bernadette. “I hadn’t realised how emotional I was when I filmed it but later that night I looked online and all these donations were there.”

Since then, she has been able to give the family food, a supply of nappies, toiletries and a year’s worth of clothing for the little boy.

A big buggy has also been gifted over as well as warm jackets and a pair of small wellies for the toddler.

“She was totally overwhelmed when it was all handed over to her,” says Bernadette.

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“A lawyer and a healthcare visitor are now also trying to help her. Somehow she’s fallen through the cracks of this system. I think she’s just an innocent person caught up in all this.”

According to Bernadette, the young mother is just one of many struggling families facing hardship.

In the last seven months, the grandmother says she has already supported 1117 families who have come to her in need of help.

“I started Lanarkshire Baby Bank after my little granddaughter was born,” says Bernadette. “It’s amazing how much your life changes when a child comes into it.

“I live in a small village and I started noticing real poverty. We have a lot of good food banks, but I felt more needed to be done for babies and mothers.”

Grandmother Bernadette started the Lanarkshire Baby Bank. Lanarkshire Baby Bank

Bernadette now works around 18 hours a day without pay to bring in the donations needed to help local families.

The baby bank runs entirely without funding, merely through help from generous supporters.

Those coming to her in need, she says, are often families who are working but still struggle to make ends meet.

“Loads of people come to me who are working but they’re on zero-hour contracts and they’re struggling,” she says.

“It really is a case of them being faced each day with the choice of either heating their homes or buying food for their children.”

Bernadette describes several families she knows of who have taken donated sleeping bags.

“They pretend to their children that it’s a big camping adventure,” says Bernadette. “They’re pretending to go camping with their kids to keep them warm.”

A letter from a mother who received support. Lanarkshire Baby Bank

The baby bank has received requests for help from mothers from a wide variety of backgrounds, including more than 50 refugees and a junior doctor.

“She was on maternity leave and struggling and then her benefits got stopped,” says Bernadette. “She urgently needed help.”

Bernadette says almost all of her referrals come from social services who are unable to offer support and says tough benefits sanctions are partly to blame.

“Some people get sanctioned because they’re 15 minutes late to an interview because their bus broke down,” she says.

“It’s ridiculous but this happens.”

The grandmother is thankful, though, for the sheer amount of support she gets from the public and her local community.

In the run up to Christmas, she has also launched a handbag appeal, taking in donated purses filled with gifts for mothers “who deserve to feel special at least for one day”.

The video appeal for the handbag campaign has already reached 58,000 views.

“People have been so kind,” says Bernadette. “They have donated so much and it restores your faith in humanity.

“As for the little boy we helped this weekend, we’ve already had people in touch asking what he wants for Christmas.

“I’ll be keeping in touch with him and his mother to make sure they get all the help they need.”

Visit the Lanarkshire Baby Bank page if you would like to learn more about their campaigns.