CHOC receives knitted gifts from Summerfield Park Retirement Village

Summerfield Park Retirement Village has become one of the Childhood Cancer Foundation’s latest proud supporters.

About 30 residents handed over blankets, jerseys, scarves, beanies and mittens to the foundation, better known as CHOC, to be used in care packs for children with cancer and life-threatening blood disorders who receive treatment at government hospitals.

The foundation, co-founded 38 years ago by nurse Sadie Cutland at the then Johannesburg General Hospital (today known as the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital), seeks to address the needs of not only children but their families when dealing with illnesses and treatment.

The foundation has 13 houses where the children and their parents are taken care of when they receive medical care far from home.

Cutland said it all started when she bought a R79 rocking chair in Blackheath for a breastfeeding mother at the hospital.

Today, the ward is fitted with child and family friendly furniture, toys, televisions and medical equipment sponsored by the foundation.

There are many more wards such as these across the country supported by the foundation.

Alongside major corporations, avid knitters at the Summerfield Park Retirement Village have now also joined the support network for these vulnerable families.

Cutland said the donation would go to individual children and was much appreciated.

Cecil Promnitz, representing the village, said people started knitting in December last year and he hoped the momentum would continue.

Everyone was already knitting he said, and the idea was to get everyone to work towards the same goal. He and his wife, Evelyn, led the initiative.

“We aim to continue to give [the finished work] to needy charities,” he said.

For more information about CHOC or how you can help, visit www.choc.org.za