An army of volunteers are sewing scrubs for Worcestershire’s hospitals and other care settings – but they need your help.
With the nation in lockdown, volunteers across the county are giving up their time to make sure nobody keeping us safe from coronavirus is without the clothing protection they so desperately need. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic Ashleigh Lindsell, an NHS worker from Lincoln, formed ‘For the Love of Scrubs’ to encourage people to help make the scrubs from their homes in order to fill a gap in provisions for NHS staff. The group took off and many sewers joined in the national drive to help the NHS workers.
Within Worcestershire a committed bunch of sewers recognised the need to form a cohesive team to service the local NHS in our area. So the Worcestershire offshoot group formed on Facebook.
The group has grown exponentially since then to nearly 2000 members across the county, the majority of whom are busy sewing. They are giving their time and their own materials to this great cause.
The group has received approval from the NHS Trust board in our region to make scrubs to their specification and have a process in place to satisfy their infection control, using a central hub for distribution of the finished scrubs.
Katie Powis a founder member of the Worcestershire team said ‘There are over a dozen co-ordinators covering all the towns across the county, whose homes have been turned into mini distribution hubs. Everyone is working flat out seven days and evenings a week fundraising, sourcing and distributing fabric, sewing scrubs, hats, laundry bags and headbands and arranging distribution to front line staff.
“We’ve been blown away by local businesses who have allowed their own employee volunteers into their empty offices to print our large AO size patterns. On top of that we have received donations of fabric and buttons, some from our fabulous sewers and their friends and families and some from businesses. We also have two schools who are lending us their facility to cut fabric and a fabulous local website designer has designed and donated our amazing new website.
“It is an absolutely amazing and humbling thing to be involved with. We are stunned every day by people’s kindness and the gratitude from the front-line medics who receive our donations.”
So far 225 scrub sets, 6210 wash bags, 3030 buttoned headbands and 602 scrub hats have been made by the sewers but they desperately need material for scrubs. There is a crowd-funding site set up which has reached a fantastic £5000 in donations but that will make just over 300 sets and the trust needs 1000 so there is a real need to raise some more cash. The Crowdfunding site can be found here and is accepting donations and any amount will be gratefully received.
The group are also requesting donations of buttons, elastic, drawstring, and sewing thread. If you can help with donations or want to join the team as a sewer please visit the website or join the Facebook group
For further information, images and comment please contact:
Sue Pennington
07790 489669