Rotary Is Knitting Communities Together

It all started with Dr. Barbara Pampalone, the Mid San Fernando Valley Rotary Club's inveterate knitter, making caps for premature infants the caps help prevent their losing vital body heat, improving their survival rate. Club members decided they needed a way to increase the number of caps being made, and to distribute them to hospitals in the Valley. Since we were already working with the West Hills Health & Rehabilitation Center, they mentioned the project to some of the patients and residents there. Resident Lily Lande, 100 years young and legally blind, was one who took up the idea as a personal challenge, becoming the project's most prolific knitter. In just the last few months she has made more than 45 preemie and chemo caps, plus one blanket! With Janet Feely at West Hills Sunrise Assisted Living Center, now at the Woodland Hills facility, they expanded to residents there, again providing yarn, patterns, knitting needles and crochet hooks. One of the Alzheimer's patients cheerfully started teaching knitting classes to other residents, showing unusual patience while doing so. The project's results are astounding, helping four different communities within the Valley and truly knitting them together, even if some meet only through photographs. With Rotary as the guide and conduit, this project helps premature infants survive, gives cancer patients a cheerful cover for their baldness, is a recognized method for helping Alzheimer's and elderly patients improve their cognitive abilities, and assists the families of all these patients. More than caps and blankets, what is given is the message that others care. But the knitters may be benefitting most of all -- their most frequent comment is how excited they are to again be able to do something productive for others. And as we know from numerous studies, volunteering is good for your health. No wonder Rotary's motto is "Service Above Self". Just 4 months old, the project has started to snowball, with friends, relatives, Rotary clubs and assisted living facilities in several parts of California getting onboard. For more information, or to participate, please contact Beth Ullman of the Mid San Fernando Valley Rotary Club, at 818-701-6889.