Pregnancy Help Taranaki: yarn donation keeping babies warm this winter

Pregnancy Help Taranaki branch manager Corrine Coombe with some of the donated balls of yarn on Thursday, January 8. Photo / Alyssa Smith

A large donation of wool will help keep Taranaki’s youngest warm this winter.

Pregnancy Help Taranaki branch manager Corrine Coombe says she and the team were thrilled to receive a donation of hundreds of balls of yarn recently, from a local family.

“They were cleaning up the house after their mother passed away. They wanted to continue their mother’s legacy of helping people and their mother’s love of knitting. They took great comfort in knowing their donation would help families in Taranaki.”

Corrine says Pregnancy Help Taranaki has a great group of 60 volunteer knitters, and this donation will enable them to knit up a storm, creating blankets, hats, jerseys, slippers and even toys for Taranaki babies.

“This yarn has given our volunteers the resources to contribute to the wider need in Taranaki. Our knitters also create woollen clothing which goes up to Taranaki Base Hospital, ready to be given to new babies.”

With a 50 per cent increase in clients for the December 2023- January 2024 period, Corrine says the donation is a great help.

“In the same period last year, we had 100 clients and that’s now gone up to 150. It’s a significant increase that we wouldn’t be able to meet without the help of the many people involved in our support network.”

She says once the clothing has been sized and sorted, it will be added to Pregnancy Help Taranaki’s clothing stock, ready to be sorted into clothing packages.

“We cater for newborn babies right up to size two. The clothing packages are given to our clients. We are quite lucky that we receive a lot of donations.”

Re-purposing and recycling is an important value of Pregnancy Taranaki, says Corrine.

“We are proud that 100 per cent of textiles we receive are recycled or repurposed. This goes right down to when we receive the textiles, we talk about what it can be used for. Many of our families who receive a package will use it, return it and then get another one and continue the cycle. The pre-loved and well cared for clothes then help multiple families.”

She says Pregnancy Help Taranaki is always looking for more crafters and environmentally-minded volunteers.

“The more knitter we have, the more people we can help. We’d also be happy to have some more sewers to help us with mending, and people passionate about re-purposing textiles who can give us more ideas on how we can benefit more people with our re-purposing and recycling.”