An 11-year old has had a hand in raising £1,600 for her local NHS charity by making and selling masks from her front garden. Maya Divall, from St. Annes, got crafty during lockdown and set up a mask making station at her “happy place”- the sewing machine. She displayed them outside her house and left a little pot for donations for anyone who wanted one, and Suzy Clayton-Jones, better known as Zumba Suzy, sold them through her virtual Zumba classes.
Donations were then gifted to Blackpool Teaching Hospitals in-house charity, Blue Skies Hospitals Fund. Along with the sale of masks, Christine Holland, Maya’s Aunt, wanted to do something meaningful herself to help the NHS during the Covid-19 Pandemic. She began to make scrubs for her local hospital, Blackpool Victoria Hospital.
It became a family affair when Shellene Divall, Maya’s mum, pitched in with her sewing skills and soon helped form a troop of over 30 sewing enthusiasts spread across the Fylde coast.
Christine said: “I think everyone who has contributed has felt like they’ve done something positive to help, and just wanting to do more has brought us all together.”
She estimates that the group’s makeshift production line created around 600 sets of scrubs, over half of which went to The Vic and the remaining sets went to local doctors surgeries and health clinics.
Donations flooded in to assist in purchasing materials and the residual funds, combined with the monies Maya raised, totalled to £1,600.
