A STOURBRIDGE based group of volunteers who knit, sew and crochet items to support hospitals, hospices and charities have been given a £1,000 boost from a leading housebuilder.

Crafting For Communities has received the grant from Persimmon Homes West Midlands as part of its Community Champions scheme.

Persimmon makes £64,000 a month available to fund community initiatives across the UK and decided Crafting for Communities was a worthy recipient of funds to help the group keep up demand for items.

The organisation, founded by Wordsley based mum and businesswoman Lisa Maidment, was set up to provide scrubs to healthcare workers amid the Covid crisis and was initially called Dudley Love of Scrubs but it has grown into a much larger outfit, creating all sorts of handcrafted items to help people in the community.

To reflect its wider remit, the group has since been renamed and it now operates from the Mary Stevens Centre, in Oldswinford, Stourbridge.

Colleen Cator, a trustee of Crafting For Communities, described the donation from Persimmon as "fantastic" and said it would be of great help.

She added: “The purchase of fabric and wool is central to our work in producing items such as baby clothes, dementia items, angel baby cribs, clothing and bedding, incubator mattresses and many more items to provide comfort and joy to a wide range of people.

“We have a wonderful Facebook group for those who make items, so we can chat and share advice. We also provide all the materials, including things such as thread and needles, because we value the time and effort of our volunteers.

“We have hubs all around the region with wool, knitting kits and crochet patterns for people to borrow. We also use some awesome volunteer drivers who make sure we keep running and get things where they need to be.

“So far we’ve made over 50,000 items for our communities including almost 3,000 sets of scrubs and face masks but this is just the beginning for us.”

David Greengrass, sales director designate for Persimmon Homes West Midlands, said: “We’re delighted to be getting involved with Crafting For Communities, it’s such a fantastic project.

“The application we received from Colleen included so many heart-warming stories such as making teddies for local children admitted to hospital and dementia items for all the borough care homes.

“The group has also created vital pieces of PPE during the pandemic, so we wanted to reward their fantastic efforts with this funding.”

To apply for Community Champions funding visit persimmonhomes.com/charity.