A Photo Update

Yesterday, a handful of girls from the Sewing Club at Woodstock School went to LCH to drop off some hats they made this quarter. It was a new project for the club, but the girls put together some fleece hats (which will be extremely useful in the winter).

We were lucky that a new baby was in the hospital - we missed two discharged earlier that day. According to Dr Roopa, the mothers often leave at 2pm at the latest so that they can catch a shared taxi back to their village (many are 4-6 hours away). Still - there was a new baby girl, born at 3:00am in the morning on the 20th, and the mother allowed us to take a picture!

As you can see, despite it being May (and summer here!), the baby is bundled up in fleece, as is the mama. The hat is one crocheted by one of the Woodstock staff members, the Divine Hat (Ravelry link, free pattern). The sleeper and blanket were made by other members in the community, and may be this baby's only clothes for a few weeks (or months) depending on the family's income and what they can purchase over the monsoon.

April Tally

In April, we received approximately 180 hats! The vast majority of them came from a church with a relationship to some Woodstock staff members, but we also received contributions from some Woodstock staffers directly. Additionally, a student group of knitters donated hats to LCH and brought them in directly - I wasn't able to be there to take pictures, and I'm waiting on the final numbers to update - they may get linked into May.

I've been told by someone that their daughter wants to knit hats and send them out directly (yay!), and staff members continue to drop hats off on my desk to weave in ends, so I know that while May might not see the numbers that April did, we should be able to see the hospital through summer (April-June, here) and into monsoon (July-September). June & July are summer holiday for us at the school, so I would love to see LCH settled with hats to last them through the middle of August -- so that means 102 hats, as soon as possible! Right now, they're "set" for hats in May and June, but without new additions, will be -42 hats in July.