A young Mum with chronic health issues of her own has spent the year giving back to local people in need.

Sophie Warman, from Midsomer Norton, has been helping people for over a decade, knitting blankets for premature babies at the RUH and Bristol Children’s Hospital. In 2017 alone, Sophie donated four thousand blankets!

But her attention turned to people struggling with personal circumstances during the first lockdown and she became acutely aware of people falling through the gaps whilst waiting, or not eligible for, Foodbank vouchers.

Sophie is housebound through her own health issues, yet set about collecting donations from people and sometimes paying for items herself if there were shortages. She has packed up 53 food parcels in three weeks, with her partner helping to deliver them.

Most of the people in need approach Sophie via social media and direct messaging. She says: “I’ve been through struggles myself and I know how it feels. I’ve always helped people. It’s how I’ve been brought up.

“I suppose it has given me a purpose this year, despite my health issues. It has pushed me on to do more.

“I’ve been really surprised by the stories that I’ve been told by people and the struggles they are facing. I am caring for people as they care for me.”

The 28-year-old doesn’t seek attention for her good deeds, quite the opposite – and her story was passed on to The Journal by Jon Durrant, whose work with the sleep pods featured in the paper two weeks ago. Sophie has been donating cosmetics and treats to a Bristol homeless charity that he is involved in.

Sophie has set up a JustGiving page to help pay for the food parcels that she is sending out and has recently been contacted by a well-wisher online who donated six Christmas trees to local families who would have gone without this year.

The page is aiming to raise £200 for supplies and has made £140 so far. The parcels contain items you would find donated to a Foodbank, such as rice, pasta and tins of food and aims to be a stop-gap for those people in need, no questions asked.

As well as looking after her two young daughters, who are aged five and two, Sophie has also been wrapping presents for Age UK, collecting toy donations, raising money for animal rescue and runs a Facebook page for recycling.

Her philanthropy is positively spreading – Sophie tells us of her eldest daughter being upset that they couldn’t provide a toy in one of the Christmas parcels they were making. She disappeared and Sophie found her raiding her own toy box to see if she could find something of her own to give.

Asked if that made her proud, Sophie replied: “Very.”