Chichester volunteers sew scrubs for NHS staff and GPs

Fiona O’Connor, who runs a soft furnishing business in Aldsworth, near Westbourne, and Sally Garner-Gibbons have so far raised more than £11,000 in donations to buy material and have a team of around 30 professional seamstresses between them, plus many more volunteers.

Fiona, who lives in Hambrook, said: “Having felt pretty useless for the first three weeks of lockdown, I then saw the Scrub Hub initiative on BBC’s The One Show last week. With a workroom sitting empty and idle, I saw how we could help.

“It was like setting up a new business overnight.

“Within the first 24 hours I had contacted the national Scrub Hub organisation providing them with all of the required information about my team, been approved and accepted by them and added to their website, set up a new email account for NHS professionals to contact us by, and started a fund-raising page.

“I set a fairly small target of £1,000 at first, as we were only a team of six, but within 18 hours, we had smashed the target, and I had received dozens of emails offering help.

“In amongst them was Sally’s and from there it has snowballed.

“We now have 800 metres of fabric in our possession, our patterns are cut, seamstresses are chomping at the bit, fund-raising is growing, and we have 194 pairs of scrubs on order.

“The emails from NHS professionals are incredibly humbling – they are so appreciative of everyone’s efforts, yet they are the ones who require our thanks.”

Sally, who is a stage manager at Chichester Festival Theatre and a lecturer at Chichester College, said: “I teach Stage Management and Production Arts.

“I knew that I had access to equipment and importantly the expertise to make scrubs and so I started the ball rolling.

“I got together a small team of costume-making experts from my theatre world, with costume and fashion and textile teachers and technicians from the college, then spread the word about needing more support over social media.

“It went mad and we have been inundated with incredible people offering time, skills, materials and equipment.

“So I decided I needed to formalise things and joined the Scrub Hub. That’s where I found Fiona.

“She had set up a local scrub hub at the very same time and I emailed her and suggested that we should join forces.

“It’s been a blessing meeting her as we have shared the load.

“She has taken on the management for the orders from health workers while I am looking after fabric and creative work force.

“So far I have a database of more than 50 volunteers, some from my theatre and college world but lots form the wonderful local community.

“We have started cutting the many patterns and searched high and low for fabric – it’s a very precious commodity now.

“I always teach my students that when they are very stressed about the opening night of a show, we have to put things into perspective, be grateful that we are just playing ‘make believe’ and not saving lives.

“Well this is the irony today.

“The people we are helping are actually saving lives.

“I’m so in awe of our health workers and the incredible sacrifice they make for us every day and I am glad to be able to help even in this small way.

“I wish we could do more.”

Scrubs orders should be sent to scrubschichester@gmail.com

Anyone interested in volunteering should get in touch on the group’s Facebook page here.

Donate towards the fundraiser to purchase materials here.

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