#PledgeScrubs

The #PledgeScrubs campaign started to supply high quality Irish made scrubs because of a shortage of this work wear requirement for front line workers. The shortage is getting worse due to the rise in demand and long delays in ordering. I wanted to thank health care workers for stepping up to the challenge of Covid-19. Hospital supplies are low and many in HCW (both in hospitals and elsewhere) are advised to wear Scrubs rather than their own clothing for the first time. Requests come from key hospital staff, carers, nurses in hospitals and in the community, physios working with Covid positive patients, radiographers, OT's in testing centres, nursing homes, disability centres and HSE/NHS employees redeployed to testing and assessment centres!

Email me at: [email redacted]  or through the campaign page to be added to the list for #pledgescrubs donations  (send your work address, contact phone details, request details including sizing) DO NOT SEND FACEBOOK MESSAGES AS UNRELIABLE

As an All Island campaign please realise I will make the best gesture possible in accordance with my resources. I respect the pressures and shortages out there. Donors you may send me specific requests too.

Thank you to near 1500 donors who have supported this campaign with open hearts and shared thinking to support our Front Line Heros, thank you for sharing it 4200 times now too!
To those fund raising independently for pledgescrubs, my greatest thanks for your hard work and ideas.

Background of organiser: My name is Edel MacBride from Donegal, I have a clothing business in the North West of Ireland for over 30 years and am passionate about Irish made, sustainable products with quality provenance.

Why I was inspired to do this? I noticed a post on facebook by a nurse who had bought a bedsheet to have scrubs made! I was appalled. The outcry for scrubs from health care workers was prominent across media. While isolated at home in Ballybofey, Co Donegal due to #COVID-19 crisis (my shop in Derry was closed weeks ago and knitting tours cancelled ) I felt I had the time and skills to help.

Why should HCWs have to buy scrubs due to HSE/NHS shortages ?  Donegal shirt makers "Moville Clothing" transferred their skilled team from shirts to cotton-blend SCRUBS. The unisex designed sets can be washed at 60-80 degrees and dry fast.
I have known this factory for a long time and knew they were doing the right thing at the right time. I tweeted their offer of Scrubs at a reduced price on Sunday night March 22nd. (Previously they made priest shirts and barristers cloaks). 
On Monday the 23rd I rang and asked to gift a set of scrubs and while talking to Ray the owner realised others may like to do the same. 
Ray felt the same anger about health workers buying their own scrubs. He had reduced the manufacturing price as low as possible due to the pandemic to a not- for-profit base. He told me the phone was hopping with nurses ordering their own.
The factory are producing them at a non-profit cost of euro 40 a set since the onset of the crisis. The feed back from HCW already wearing them is fantastic. The are very well cut, look well, will wash very well. dry fast and no need ironed.

By pledging or gifting scrubs we can....

1-Help solve a real practical kit need and cheer a front line worker up too All donations will be used to make and deliver scrubs to HCWs dealing with the crisis. The funds will be used on the Island of Ireland and I am solely responsible for receiving and using these funds.  Very specific requests are not possible to promise due to the timeframe. Scrubs will be ordered for distribution as funds allow. All names of donations (unless anon) will be kept and details of where scrubs go with be maintained and posted to the campaign as and where possible. Orders for scrubs will be paid to Moville Clothing proforma.

2-Pledging scrubs shows a genuine connection and says thank you to front line workers in a practical way.

3-The scrubs are made in Donegal providing work in Inishowen with Moville Clothing, a skilled company with 100% integrity.   My time and that of anyone volunteering  to help me manage this campaign and it's requests together with any promotion on my media platforms are free and voluntary in the spirit of supporting our frontline hero's in this crisis.

Thank you for donating and sharing the fund over 4000 times Edel  (If your business wishes to donate and cannot use the GoFundMe system I am happy to send the bank details)


Thanks to Laura Glenn for coverage in the Derry Journal. Thanks to Rachel McLaughlin for coverage in #DonegalWoman Thanks to #TodayFM and #cadbury for nominating Moville as a 2020 "SoundTown" winner as a result of this campaign and a nomination by Michael Skelly from Moville. Thanks to Ruth O Connor for interviewing me about #pledgescrubs for this feature called "Solidarity through sewing"