Mossel Bay teddy bears sent to Ukraine
Teddy bears knitted in the Mossel Bay area have gone to Ukraine and they have been featured on a television programme, Met 'n huppel in die stap, on the channel, kykNET.
The knitting project started in 2019, just before the Covid-19 pandemic started, according to one of the knitters, Marianne Potgieter.
She is part of a group of ladies from Braambos Community Church in Little Brak. They used to gather at the bowls club in Hartenbos. Now they meet at Little Brak.
Marianne says she can't believe the large amount of knitting yarn people have donated for the project.
The knitted bears were sent to clinics in Mossel Bay, to court for children who have to testify, to the police station trauma counselling rooms and to the provincial hospital in Mossel Bay, according to
Marianne.
Now, the news of some of the bears arriving in Ukraine is especially gratifying for the knitters.
Christa de Villiers, the wife of the minister of Braambos Church, co-ordinates the distribution of the teddy bears.
Marianne said bears from all over the country were sent to a central point in Cape Town and then dispatched to Ukraine. A heart with “Jesus loves me” printed on it was put on the bears.
“A lot of the bears that went to Ukraine came from the Mossel Bay area,” Marianne says.
Photographs of some of the Mossel Bay knitters appeared on kykNET.
Marianne has knitted more than 250 bears since the project began. After her bears were sent to provincial hospital in Mossel Bay she received a letter from the Western Cape Health Department, thanking Marianne for the bears.
“Not that I want thanks,” she says humbly. “I just want to encourage other grannies and people who knit. It was a labour of love which turned into a project that comforts people.”