Close to 150 blankets made by volunteers across Nelson and Tasman are set to arrive in Eastern Europe later this year, offering warmth to families facing temperatures as low as minus 25 degrees.
The blankets, along with jerseys, slippers, hats, scarves and mittens, were on display at the Reformed Church of Nelson last week before beginning their journey overseas through Operation Cover Up.
Operation Cover Up is a project of the charity Mission Without Borders, which provides aid, warmth and comfort to children in orphan homes, poor families and homeless people in Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania.
The Nelson Tasman branch is coordinated by mother-and-daughter duo Elisabeth VandenBerg and Elaine Borger. Elisabeth helped to establish the local branch in 2002 with Elaine joining the following year.
“We’ve got a mailing list of about 90 or 100 local people who knit for this project, so we keep in touch with them a few times a year,” Elaine says.
“They knit either a couple of squares or perhaps a strip for a blanket, while some people knit enough to put together a whole blanket themselves.
“Other people crochet as well as knit – some have a real eye for colour.”
The group hosts a monthly craft gathering where volunteers knit, crochet, chat and stitch blanket squares together.
Once completed, the blankets are compressed into wool bales using a wool press at a local shearing shed.
The bales are then trucked to Auckland before being loaded into shipping containers bound for Europe. Each year, two 40-foot shipping containers are sent from New Zealand with the next one expected to arrive before the cold weather sets in.
“You can imagine what it might be like being homeless in minus 25 degrees winter conditions, and all these blankets should arrive in Eastern Europe just before the coldest months,” Elaine says.
“It’s really great to be able to do something to show them that someone on the other side of the world loves them and cares for them.”
Elaine says they are keen to welcome more volunteers, and even small contributions can make a difference.
“If people want to just start by knitting some squares out of wool, that would be fantastic.”
She says squares measuring 20 centimetres are preferred as it makes it easier to stitch them all together.
Wool donations are also welcome, along with financial contributions to help cover freight costs. It costs about $5 to ship each blanket to Eastern Europe.
Drop-off points are available at the Salvation Army Family Store in Richmond and St Vincent de Paul in Stoke.
To donate or find out more about getting involved, email hborger@xtra.co.nz
