SCRUBS SHORTAGE GETS NEEDLES FLYING...
A Wirral business which diversified into sewing scrubs for
the medical profession when lockdown hit is on track to
have provided around 800 sets to doctors, nurses and GPs
surgeries.
The Sewing Room in West Kirby closed its doors in March
in what owner Charlotte Moran described as “an incredibly
surreal and stomach-churning experience!”
Their amazing team of volunteers across Wirral and Chester
has now supported Arrowe Park, The Royal Liverpool and
The Countess of Chester hospitals as well as many local GP
surgeries.
Charlotte said: “Due to the close contact required of our
work, fitting garments on clients and sharing machinery
amongst staff, we weren’t fortunate in the way of being able
to adapt our business to suit the changes we were now faced
with. Then a colleague came across an initiative set up called
‘For the Love of Scrubs’ where an NHS nurse was calling
upon sewers to hand make scrubs to help cover the shortage
for our NHS staff. It was a no brainer.
“We asked our teams if they would like to be involved – We
would provide the fabric and they would sew the sets from
their homes, to adhere to the government’s social distancing
guidelines. Not only did our wonderful teams jump at this
voluntary work, they also pulled together friends and family
and our two teams of 3, suddenly turned in to 20!”
Charlotte set up a crowdfunder page which has so far
raised nearly £10,000 and volunteers have grown from 20
to 50 including professional fabric cutters Paul and Jim who
enabled the group to cut 80 patterns in an hour as opposed to
having to hand cut one.
Charlotte said: “They are our heroes. We said – ‘if you keep
donating, we’ll keep sewing’ – and we’ve had donations flying
in from local businesses, friends, family, strangers. Businesses
donated percentages of their sales to our page and charitable
online quizzes nominated our crowdfunder as their virtual
door fee!”
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