Members of the Busy FIngers knitting club playfully dump balls of wool donated by area residents on president Eileen McCaughey. FRED SHERWIN PHOTO

"It's been unbelievable. Absolutely, unbelievable," That's the response from Busy Fingers Knitting Club founder and driving force Eileen McCaughey when asked about the response the club has received to a call for donations of wool and yarn in the Nov. 23 edition of the The Orléans Star.

"Honestly, you wouldn't believe it. I can hardly believe it," says McCaughey standing in a room filled with just some of the donated material..

Since the Orléans Star put out a call for wool and yarn donations in the Nov. 23 edition of the newspaper, the club has received more than 1,000 balls of wool and yarn members of the public have dropped off at Symphony Senior Living Orléans, Fire Station 31 on Charlemagne Blvd., and the Willowbend Retirement Community.

They have even received several garbage bags of wool from the Aspira Bearbrook Retirement Community in Blackburn Hamlet which precipitated the call for donations after they told McCaughey they couldn’t collect any wool for her this year.

Besides the wool and yarn that has been dropped off at Symphony Senior Living Orléans and Willowbend, residents at both retirement communities have also joined in the campaign by donating wool of their own. Plus there has s been a steady stream of donations dropped off on McCaughey’s doorstep in Fallingbrook.

Most of the donated wool and yarn will be turned into mittens, toques, scarves and slippers made by the club’s 200-plus members over the coming year.

In 2023, they made and donated more than 3,100 items to 31 different organizations. They shipped another 1,000 items to Catholic missions operating in Guatemala which handed them out to local residents who live in the mountainous region of the country that often gets extremely cold in the winter months. Many of the items sent to Guatemala were made by a group of nuns at a monastery in the Beauce, Québec who started a Busy Fingers chapter during the pandemic.

Among the many local organizations which receive items from Busy Fingers are the Perley and Rideau Veterans Health Centre, the Clothesline Project which supports survivors of violence against women and the Orléans-Cumberland Resource Centre.

None of the aforementioned would be possible without the donations by local residents and the participation of Symphony and Willowbend, for which the 89-year-old
McCaughey is eternally grateful. “There’s no way I can thank everyone enough.”

The Busy Fingers knitting club has over 200 members including the core group of about 30 women who meet the first and third Monday every month at Eileen McCaughey’s house. FRED SHERWIN PHOTO