Young mums struggling in isolation to cope with new-born babies; families putting parenting down their list of priorities as they fight to put food on the table and handle life's other stresses.
All familiar scenarios to those who work in Plunket.
"There are young mums out there who are desperate but who don't come to us, don't talk about their situation," says Clare Green, Plunket Volunteer and Community Development Manager for Auckland and Northland.
"Often parenting is low on their priority list, they are instead having to cope with putting food on the table and all the other family stresses," she says.
The spotlight on how to connect with, and help, these people at one of Plunket's Auckland's clinics - the Manurewa Family Centre - was behind a session held with BNZ staff during the bank's Closed for Good volunteer day this week.
Employees from BNZ's marketing and sponsorship teams spent a day at the clinic, formulating a marketing plan to help the clinic - which has been operating from its present location for over 20 years - become more visible and "attractive" to those in need.
Green, who attended the BNZ session, says: "Our building is a bit run-down, our furniture is all odds and ends, it doesn't scream out 'pop in and say hello'. We need better signage, we need to get the centre busy and humming because our work is very important.
"Those early years are really vital; it is so important for children to get a good start in life.
"We recently had a new mum not coping with her baby and not getting any sleep. We were able to bring her into the clinic and introduce her to a parent who had raised many children - that contact just turned everything around for her," she says.
However Green agrees that there are other parents in similar situations who are missing out altogether on this kind of support - a worrying situation which more proactive marketing could help overcome.
The Manurewa clinic was one of 520 community organisations and groups assisted on Wednesday during BNZ Closed for Good. All 170 BNZ stores and around 3000 staff spent the day helping organisations with a myriad of tasks including advice in financial literacy, marketing, budgeting and old fashioned "working bees" like tree planting and fence painting.
Most of the groups who receive assistance are charity organisations, but also include kindergartens and schools.
Green says ideas offered by the BNZ specialists were very helpful: "We are not marketing experts, we can have all the ideas in the world but we are not sure where to start. They have the skills and were able to suggest solutions."
To raise awareness of the clinic and its work, an open day is being planned along with the setting up of a Facebook page. Further down the track, more targeted marketing at specific age groups is planned through the use of social media.
First undertaken in 2009, BNZ staff have in that time given over 140,000 hours of time to over 2,500 projects during Closed for Good, making it the largest single day of corporate volunteering in New Zealand.
They have also delivered over 90 financial literacy workshops on money basics, general financial literacy or being scam savvy and more than 200 skilled projects where staff use expertise to help solve a problem or plan across areas such as human resources, finance, marketing, digital and social media strategy.
BNZ Chief Executive Officer Anthony Healy says the original decision taken seven years ago to shut banks for the day was bold.
"If you just ponder that in itself, it's significant to close more than 170 stores and trust our customers would be okay with that. They are because they know that volunteering is one of the unsung heroes of the economy."
Staff choose where and with whom they will spend the day. They also have a second volunteer day which they can use throughout the year.
Healy says in many cases staff develop a close relationship with those they are helping and will often commit to additional volunteer work in their own time at weekends or evenings.
"There is so much demand for the services of these not-for-profit community groups and much of what they do isn't publicised. They do such wonderful work in our communities and that's why we are out in force supporting them. "