67 Minutes for Mandela Day Project
By Lindi Mc Dowell
This year East London Ladies Circle 23 decided to do a project called “Knit 2 B Square” as our contribution to the 67 Minutes for Mandela Day. The beneficiary chosen was DJ Sobey Old Age Home situated in Buffalo Flats, East London.
The project involved the collection of knitted / crocheted squares which we turned into blankets, complete knitted blankets as well as fleece and other blankets / comforters.
The project started off very slowly, but again we were very lucky in having our project covered in 2x local publications which really assisted in getting the word out there.
In the end we were fortunate enough to not only reach our goal of 72 blankets for the home, but we were also blessed with a knitted beanie for each person as well as some additional items of clothing and tea and biscuits for the home. In total we collected 103 blankets!!!
Our handover was done at DJ Sobey on Saturday, 18 July 2015. 27 of the residents were waiting in their dining hall for us. We began offloading the blankets and brough them inside, you could see the excitement in their eyes. One of our donated blankets was specially knitted by an 84 year old lady and we decided to give this special blanket to the oldest resident in the home, who is a 97 year old lady who could not stop smiling. We all had a turn to hand out a blanket and a beanie to each person and the smiles and ‘thank yous’ we got were so heart warming. The other 45 residents are all bed ridden so off to the wards we went, with a trolley and the balance of the blankets. We handed out the last of the blankets and I think each of us had a ‘moment’ with one or two of the residents which makes us realise all over again the reason why we decided to become a Circler in the first place.
The balance of the blankets we’d ideally like to handover to a children’s home in East London. We have not yet chosen a beneficiary, but will do so in the next week or two and arrange our final handover.
A big thank you to all who contributed in any way, big or small to make a difference in the lives of some very special ladies and gents at the DJ Sobey Old Age home.
