Date: Saturday 22 August 2020 – Saturday 24 October 2020
View this exhibition in the foyer
Monday – Saturday
11am – 4pm
Plan your visit here.
The Southport & Ormskirk district volunteers of For the Love of Scrubs have created a beautifully detailed quilt representing their experiences of COVID-19.
Now on display in The Atkinson’s foyer.
In response to the COVID – 19 pandemic, For the Love of Scrubs was set up in March 2020 by nurse Ashleigh Linsdell at Lincolnshire Hospital.
After being unable locate scrubs for herself, Ashleigh asked her friends on Facebook if anyone could make her a set. This request went viral and soon after Ashleigh set up the For the Love of Scrubs Facebook group.
Volunteers who joined the group were asked to adopt a hospital or trust district. Angela Firth headed up the Southport and Ormskirk district which quickly attracted 300 volunteers and the support of Visualpoint who created a fundraising page for the group.
Fabric donations came in readily from the public and the group received hundreds of meters of fabric from John Lewis in Liverpool and Scrubs Glorious Scrubs in Ascot. KC Workwear in Birkdale printed full scale sewing patterns for the group and a tailor in Ormskirk, Chris Chappel, cut out the patterns. This enabled the group to increase production.
To date the volunteers of Southport and Ormskirk district For the Love of Scrubs have sewn 3000 scrubs, helped twelve NHS hospitals, several surgeries and numerous individuals.
During a slow period in production when they group were awaiting supplies, Angela suggested the volunteers create a square patch representing their experiences of COVID-19. The 45 patches were sewn together to make a beautifully detailed quilt, now on display in The Atkinson’s foyer.
Angela said: It’s been more than a production of scrubs, I feel it’s become a club, it’s become a place where you can share thoughts, worries, it’s certainly helped many of us with our mental health, given us a feeling of being useful and a purpose at a time when we just didn’t know what to do with ourselves.