Tuesday 26 May 2020

Shining a Light - Hurrah for Hayfield (and neighbours)!

A few days ago, Pennie Roberts gave us an update on the achievements of High Peak Scrub Hub, which she leads and which has a core representation of Sustainable Hayfield's Reduce, Re-use and Recycle group members amongst its participants. And what story it is!

The Hub, set up and coordinated by Pennie, and providing aprons, face masks and mask extenders, scrub hats, headbands and laundry bags primarily for carers and exposed professionals working in community settings – now has over 70 people on its database, aged 18 - 85, mainly sewing but also volunteer drivers and 2 bike couriers. Sewers come from across High Peak including Hayfield, New Mills, Chinley, Chisworth, Tideswell, and Buxton and includes the retired head seamstress from Chatsworth House. The Hub liaises with the Glossop Scrub Hub to ensure best use of resources.

High Peak Scrub Hub’s sewers had, as of a few days ago, sewn 3188 items. Yes, that’s 3188! These include 1154 face masks and 826 laundry bags. they contributed 100 sets of scrubs to the Christies hospital appeal for 1500 sets and 300 laundry bags to Salford Royal’s appeal for 6000. This is a magnificent achievement, and reflects great credit on everyone involved with this wholly voluntary and largely informal effort, started just a few weeks ago.

Apart from the 2 hospitals its items have been distributed to community settings across the High Peak. It has supplied to 20 care homes, residents at Primrose Court, 3 schools including Hayfield Primary School, community carers, nurses and volunteers. It's provided scrubs for GPs and podiatrists. It is distributing cotton face masks to the community free of charge through the Village Store, Hayfield News and New Mills Food Bank. The Hub is also in touch with High Peak and New Mills CVss.

At least 50% of the material used has been repurposed from other cotton items, so avoiding recycling or landfill. The Hub's sewers have dug deep into their stashes of material, supplemented by some judicious purchasing. A problem with the supply of elastic worldwide did not stop the Hub’s intrepid team who altered designs and adapted their sewing to ensure items continued to be produced.

If anyone knows of a need for face masks in particular please get in contact. High Peak Scrub Hub is at highpeakscrubhub@gmail.com. Pennie is on 01663 747132. Any other potential contacts are welcome: just let the Hub know who's in need.

The whole Scrub Hub enterprise and its achievements just shows what can be done quickly, by like-minded people starting out with no resources other than their own skills and passion to assist. We are all most grateful and extend congratulations to everyone involved!

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