Bags of talent put to use at home

Mercy Place Woree residents Judy Wait and Chris Gilmore get busy on their sewing machines to make laundry bags for Cairns health workers on the coronavirus front line. Mercy Place Westcourt’s Pamela Riley catches up with news from her new penpal after more than 60 people from Cairns and other parts of Australia offered to start corresponding with residents.

ELDERLY residents and staff at a Cairns retirement village have joined the fight against coronavirus by putting their sewing skills to use and creating laundry bags for health workers in the city.

The team at the not-forprofit Mercy Place Woree aged care home said they launched their project so they could “make a difference to the lives of Cairns health workers”.

Lifestyle assistant at Mercy Place Woree, Colleen Valinoti, and residents from the home’s craft group have teamed up to make laundry bags, which enable medical workers to immediately change out of their work uniforms following a shift, and deposit them safely in a drawstring linen bag for laundering.

“Because I organise activities for residents at Mercy Place Woree, I know how talented our residents are with their sewing skills and it prompted me to ask if they would like to help out with this project for local health workers,” Ms Valinoti said.

“We’ve been making the drawstring laundry bags together over the past couple of weeks now, which has been very meaningful and enjoyable for all of us.”

Mercy Place Woree service manager Charlene Reyes said Ms Valinoti and her craft group seniors were extremely talented and had shown true dedication and commitment to making the laundry bags.

“They have all been wonderfully committed to producing the drawstring bags over recent weeks, which will be sent to Cairns Hospital,” Ms Reyes said.

“Everyone here at Mercy Place Woree thinks that they are not only incredibly talented, but also extremely special people to want to help in this way.”

The idea for the linen bags came as a result of the Cairns team hearing about the ‘ Get Scrubbed’ Facebook page, which was started in Perth.

Meanwhile, residents at Mercy Place Westcourt have had an overwhelming response to their search for penpals. More than 60 people contacted the home since news of their search appeared in the Cairns Post, with most from Cairns and one from Adelaide.