College students knit for victory

Youngsters inundated with clothing after donation post goes viral

A group of Exeter College students have been inundated with knitted clothing after a post asking for donations went viral on Facebook.

Health and Social Care students have been collecting various knitted items to give out on neonatal units around the country to help keep premature babies warm.

Students planned to contact a few local knitting groups to help create hats, gloves and blankets but after the post found its way onto Facebook, it went viral.

Second year Health and Social Care student Holly Barclay had her address on the poster that went viral asking for donations, resulting in a few days of her family home being swamped with new knitted products.  

“I had made a small poster with my home address to just put around a few notice boards in our village but someone local put it on Facebook and it has been shared by over 1,000 people now.  “We don’t even know how many donations we’ve got altogether now but they’re all going to a great cause.” 

The class will be sending the donations to the charity Bliss, who help babies born premature or sick. Health and Social Care Programme Leader Grace Parker said, “Every year in my tutor group we run a community project to give something back in the run-up to Christmas and this year the students came to me with this idea and have just run with it.  

“All these students are on a course that prepares them for jobs within health and social care so they all recognise that neonatal units are such a vital thing to be able to support – especially with the NHS under so much stress at the moment.  

“Bliss have been really supportive of our efforts and they’re currently running a national campaign for blankets but finding places where our knitted hats and gloves can go too.” 

Donations have been pouring in from across the country, with knitted items arriving from Kent, Leicester, Lincoln as well as some of Exeter College’s own employees knitting for the cause.