Sunday, July 16, 2006

if you knit

why not consider knitting caps for newborns. a friend at work and i have done it for local hospitals but i just became aware of this.

Campaign to knit baby caps aims to save lives

By John Christoffersen, Associated Press Writer July 15, 2006
STAMFORD, Conn. --Beverly Stevens, a 67-year-old retired nurse, stays up to the wee hours of the morning knitting baby caps. She can't stop stitching, determined to save lives.
The Ohio woman is among the volunteer knitters around the country who are planning to send thousands of baby caps to developing countries.
The grassroots campaign comes after a global report on newborn mortality in May found that about 4 million babies die in their first month of life, including about half of those in the first 24 hours. Simple measures, such as knit caps to keep babies warm, could help save many of those lives, according to the report by Save the Children in Westport.
"It seemed like such a simple, satisfying way to help somebody else," Stevens said. "I'm touching something that's going to touch a baby, a mother who I never met."
Save the Children, which is working on the initiative with the Warm Up America Foundation, set a goal of enlisting 75,000 knitters. The caps will be sent to Washington, D.C., by January and then to Malawi, Bangladesh and possibly other countries, said Eileen Burke, a spokeswoman for Save the Children.
"We felt this was an incredible opportunity to connect women in the U.S. with women and babies overseas," Burke said.
Stevens has recruited some 20 volunteers alone, though she's still trying to convince her husband. She sat by, frustrated over what to do, when Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters struck........

Details of the campaign can be obtained by calling (800) 728-3843 or on the Web:
http://www.savethechildren.org/
http://www.warmupamerica.org/

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