NEARLY 70 blankets knitted by people in the community were donated to Tavistock Foodbank recently for distribution over the winter.

As part of the Edge Festival, a sub group who knitted poppies for the war memorial and various knitted items for shops around the town, as well as a knitted car cover used in the carnival parade, invited members of the community to each knit a small square.

The group held a wool amnesty in January and was given an abundance of wool and held regular knitting sessions in Kings Church for knitters to get together. In May they called a halt to the knitting and ended up with more than 3,500 squares.

Volunteers got together to sew the squares together which resulted in 67 blankets.

Anne Wroath, part of the Knitting on the Edge group, said: ‘We had lots of ladies from Tavistock knitting from January through to May.

‘It was all done with donated wool. People really latched on to the idea and some people went out and bought their own wool to knit with.’

Val Sharpe, also a member of the group, said: ‘King’s Church was a huge support to us as they let us meet there once a week to knit together.

‘It was a great way to connect — it had a real community feel to it. Some people who couldn’t make it down to the sessions knitted from home.

‘We had two 90-year-old ladies contributing.’

The group was fortunate to have some financial support from the Devon Community Foundation to help the project.

Knitters have become so involved with the project that they did not want to stop so they are now looking at other things they can create such as blankets for premature babies or twiddlemuffs for dementia patients.

Val O’Neill accepted the blankets on behalf of the Tavistock Foodbank and expressed her thanks to the group.

She said: ‘Thank you so much. We have links with Devon and Cornwall Care so we will see if they can distribute these to some of the elderly people.

‘Financial donations and food donations to the Foodbank have been very steady.

‘We have enough at the moment. As long as we’ve got three tonnes of food and don’t drop below, we’re fine.’

Val said that the foodbank gives out between three and five parcels a week on average.

A couple of weeks ago however, they gave out 15 parcels in one day, which was unusual considering there had been no big events such as changes to benefits etc.

The Tavistock Foodbank is open every Friday morning at the United Reformed Church in Russell Street. Food parcels are only given out to people who have been referred by front line care professionals such as doctors, health visitors, social workers or the Citizen’s Advice Bureau.

To find out more visit www.tavistock.foodbank.org.uk or email [email protected]