Jessica Micallef
The Sunbury Rotary Club has distributed more than 15,000 scrub hats to hospitals, with the help of fellow Australians.
Club president Janine Reinking said a post on social media in March helped to spread the word about the club’s project.
“One of our rotarians is a nurse at the Royal Melbourne Hospital,” she said.
“When COVID-19 started she said ‘do you think … some of the ladies in our club who are sewers can start making scrub hats?’
“It just snowballed from there and went from Rotary club to Rotary club.
“We ended up getting people in Perth, Brisbane and all over Australia sewing for us so we had hundreds of people sewing, it was fantastic.”
Sewers were mailed or delivered donated fabrics to make the scrub hats.
“Once they were completed, I would go and pick them up, if I could, otherwise they would post them to me,” Ms Reinking said.
The scrubs were then sent to hospitals across the country. About 1000 scrub hats were delivered to St Thomas’ Hospital in London.
“It was the most awesome project to be involved in, if not one of the best projects I have been involved in – to have the satisfaction in being able to help people,” Ms Reinking said.
“Some ladies are still making hats, they are coming in dribs and drabs now.
“To send overseas is getting quite costly so we would rather leave it within Australia at the moment.”
