1 minute read
Dale players join volunteers for drop-off at The Royal Oldham Hospital
Having helped to make thousands of scrubs, wash bags, scrub hats and masks during the Coronavirus pandemic, Rochdale Academy U-12 player Charlie Smith and his mum Kathryn have donated the last of their items - rainbow theatre gowns for children - to The Royal Oldham Hospital.
Since April, Charlie and Kathryn, along with an army of volunteers had been making items for keyworkers. Having initially been asked by a friend who works for the NHS to create wash bags, demand grew so much that Kathryn enlisted the help of over 500 volunteers, via the Facebook group 'Your Sewing Machine Needs You'.
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Kathryn explained: "We were making plain scrubs from fabric that I was buying with the money we raised through our JustGiving Page, then following the publicity we started getting, we got asked to make some scrubs to go to Wales.
"Whilst doing that, the group out in Wales got donated fabric by Chris Evans, Radio 2 presenter. During the pandemic, Chris and his son Noah have donated thousands of pounds worth of scrub fabric that they had printed with rainbows on. We were then sent some of that, which we used to make the rainbow scrubs for the Royal Oldham Hospital. They also went to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. After delivering rainbow scrubs to the children’s department at Royal Oldham Hospital in August, they asked us if we would be able to make any theatre gowns for the children, so with some of that fabric we had left, we made the gowns."
Kathryn has thanked the army of volunteers, who she says have made thousands of items.
"We've been sewing and knitting, making scrubs, wash bags, scrub hats and masks, and a lot of different knitted items including dolls and hearts that you could send to people who were in hospital or care homes. We've made nearly 1000 sets of scrubs, 2500 wash bags and countless other items."
Rochdale AFC's Jake Beesley, Harrison Hopper and Alex Newby, as well as Siobhan McElhinney, Community Trust Assistant Manager, joined Kathryn and Charlie at the Hospital to make the final drop-off.
