In this work, we analyse the effect of adding Gaussian white noise to the slow variable of a slow--fast system passing through a saddle--node (or fold) bifurcation. This problem is mainly motivated by applications to non-equilibrium energy sinks. While the effect of adding noise to the fast variable, which is important for noise-induced tipping, has been previously analysed in detail, the case where the slow variable is perturbed by noise has not been considered before. Our main result is that the noise increases the slow variable on average. We compute the effect of the noise, to lowest order, on the expectation and variance of the slow variable after the bifurcation. The contribution of the noise can be explicitly expressed in terms of Airy functions. We also provide numerical simulations, which show that the expansion to lowest order matches the observations for fairly large values of the noise intensity.