The blankets are distributed by St Vincent de Paul to welfare cases in our local community. The Macarthur area  has a growing number of homeless people each year and our blankets go directly to local people in need. The girls meet every Thursday lunchtime in H12. We are going to present our first instalment of blankets to St Vincents on 4 July.

Olivia L and Layla E have been knitting a square each week and one of our volunteers, Janine MacLeod, has put all their squares together into a beautiful blanket. As the students are learning to knit we often get lots of different sized squares. We believe these squares enhance the individuality of our blankets. This week Maxine Evans put together a crocheted blanket of misshaped squares and created more squares to enhance it (see picture). Lorraine St John has also assembled some lovely colourful blankets with the design set out by her grandaughter, Emelia B in Year 7. 

I would like to thank staff Ms Hilder, Ms Tanginoa and Ms Cornett for their help, as well as our legion of volunteer (ex-staff and friends) 'knitting ladies' who come each Thursday lunchtime to teach the girls (and often take home bags of squares and assemble them into blankets) -Maxine Evans, Lorraine St John, Maureen McCann, Maureen O'Brien, Janine McLeod, Cathy Johnson, Shirley Mills, Jean Mills, Dell Costa and Sue Ollis. We are very fortunate to have lots of support from some of our grandmothers, Glenda Gaskell grandmother of Emelia B. in Year 7 volunteers her time each Thursday lunchtime. Mrs Pam Poole, Jan Vacchini and Lynn Carlin have all sent in bags of knitted squares. Without the help of all these volunteers we would not be able to achieve as much as we do. Even a grandmother of one of our past students, Kimberly Clissold, Mrs Judith Andrews, continues to knit for our group.

If you would like to help, we would appreciate donations of knitted squares with 50 stitches cast on in garter stitch or crochet squares.

Fran Musico Rullo - HSIE Teacher