6 July 2018

At our annual changeover dinner, held at McHugh’s on Cheltenham Beach, Devonport Rotary was very pleased to make a $500 Community Services award to Lynn Dawson who has helped to warm the lives of many needy people with gifts of woollen blankets

In 2013 Lynn, expanded what had started out as a women’s prison-based project, into a community project of 5 Peggy Purl groups around the North Shore of Auckland.  The first 2 years saw more than 1000 Peggy Purl blankets created and gifted to vulnerable children around the communities in which they were made.  In 2015, ‘Peggy Purl in Your Community’ was awarded a Jetstar Flying Start grant that enabled Lynn to take the project nationwide.

Now rebranded as Peggy & Friends in Your Community, there are now more than 30 programmes working in and for their own communities from Northland to Christchurch with more to come in 2018.  More than 10,000 blankets have now been created by these groups and distributed to vulnerable children.

The Rotary Community Services Award will contribute to resources and the establishment of more Peggy & Friends groups around the Auckland region in 2018.