Rugby Scrubbers donate £1,000 to Friends of St Cross appeal to help bring chemotherapy services to the town

Michele Good and Sandy Weaver with the OSCA awarded to the Rugby PPE
Response team. — Michele Good and Sandy Weaver with the OSCA awarded to the Rugby PPE Response team.

A group of seamstresses which formed at the start of the pandemic to make personal protective equipment for the NHS has donated £1,000 to the Friends of St Cross - and they are planning to do more fundraising when social distancing measures are eased.

Scrubbers members Michele Goode and Sandy Weaver said: "When the pandemic first hit a group of friends from Rugby Theatre got together to sew scrubs and scrub bags for the NHS – hence we chose to call ourselves the Coventry and Rugby Scrubbers

"Word soon got around and we teamed up with the Friends of St Cross and the Rugby PPE Response to produce a wide range of PPE for the Hospital of St Cross and many others.

Friends of St Cross chairman Willy Goldschmidt with the cheque.

"We set up a fundraising page in order to buy material but such was the volume of material that we received from the community that we actually raised more money than was needed

before the demand for PPE was met by the NHS Supply Chain."

"Then just before Christmas the UHCW Trust, that manages the Hospitals in Rugby and Coventry, awarded the Rugby PPE Response an Outstanding Care and Achievement Award (an OSCA) and at the presentation we met up again with Willy Goldschmidt, who was one of the founders of the Rugby PPE Response.

“Willy told us the great news that the Friends had committed £200,000 to help bring Chemotherapy Services to St Cross and that they had recently launched the Friends Sapphire Anniversary Appeal.

"We decided there and then to donate £1,000 from our surplus funds to the appeal."

Willy Goldschmidt, chairman of the Friends of St Cross, said: “It was great to meet up with Michele and Sandy again to celebrate the recognition for the way in which the community

pulled together to support the NHS and local care homes when the pandemic struck.

"Even better to know that the sense of community spirit that the Rugby PPE Response helped to generate is living on and the Coventry and Rugby Scrubbers have joined a growing number of organisations and businesses which are continuing to support our local hospital through the Friends of St Cross.”