Every Wednesday afternoon, a diverse group of women come together.
One can tell from their laughter, which is both loud and infectious, that the group is having fun.
But these women meet at Scotland Place in Laurinburg each week for more than a good time. They are there to do good work as well.
These volunteers donate their time and talented hands to crochet items for newborns, domestic violence victims and residents of the Edwin Morgan Center.
Maurine Chieffet serves as instructor for the group about a dozen women. She said her participation was by accident.
“I wandered in on the wrong day and they needed somebody,” she said. “I had been crocheting all my life and it is a lot of fun … that’s why I do it.”
Margaret Herring, a Scotland Health Care System volunteer, said the group started out last year making purple caps for the newborns at Scotland Memorial.
Purple yarn was used for the caps to raise awareness of the Period of Purple Crying, a term which describes a very normal developmental phase when a newborn may cry for an extended period of time.
Enthusiasm for the project spread and the original group grew to include the group plying its needles from Scotland Place, Scotia Village, and the First United Methodist Church.
While the group continues to crochet the purple caps, they now also use a rainbow of yarn colors and crochet red newborn caps at Christmas, white with red trim Valentine caps, afghans, and lap robes.
The crocheted items are donated to several non-profit organizations.
Nancy Rogers, Scotland Health Care System’s volunteer manager, said that in addition to newborns at the hospital, baby caps have been donated to the Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis Center.Local shelters receive afghans for beds and clients are allowed to keep when they leave.
The Edwin Morgan Center residents receive a warm, soft lap robe to help keep off the chill.
Herring said that to date more than 500 baby caps have been donated and at least 17 lap robes have been completed and distributed.
Annie Wilkerson, a volunteer for about nine months didn’t know how to crochet when she joined the group, but now she’s able to help make hats for the babies and lap throws for the residents of the Morgan Center.
Doris Ann Donovan , senior program coordinator for Scotland Place, said that the crocheting group has been an exceptional program for the community.
“Throughout the group, you hear laughter and communication and these are goals the senior center hope to meet,” Donovan said “The program is a success.”
To take part, contact Nancy Rogers, volunteer manager, at Scotland Health Care system, 291-7314.
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