- We are still LIVE! We will keep this crowdfunder open to take donations towards the cost of producing scrubs.
- We need YOUR help to raise £10,000 to continue sewing scrubs for the Frontline.
- Each set of scrubs costs around £15 for the materials needed.
Please keep reading below to find out where the money is going!
Latest update (Oct 2020):
We are sticking with the crowdfunder as a donations platform up until Christmas or when the requests for scrubs stops.
The amount raised by the end of September was £1745. Added to our offline fundraising we hit £2500 - enough to purchase at least 800 metres of fabric, making at least 200 pairs of scrubs.
How did our project start?
As Covid-19 hit there was an outcry from the NHS and Care Workers for scrubs and accessories for Frontline workers to wear when working with vulnerable patients.
Anyone with a sewing machine and a stash of fabric rallied round and formed groups to help.
Nottingham - For The Love Of Scrubs was born, a regional group, part of the National For The Love Of Scrubs group. Three ladies started the group, Amy Gathercole, Emma Barlett and Alaska Bishop, expecting to be making a few scrubs and accessories for the cause.
Five weeks later the group had grown to over 1700 supporters with hundreds of volunteers making scrubs, hats, laundry bags, headbands and ear savers by the thousands. Although local hubs had been set up across Nottinghamshire and an admin team had been set up to manage the Facebook group, it was getting too much to contain in front rooms.
The project needed some stability to give it the longevity it needed to continue responding to the requests that weren't slowing up.
Tiger Community Enterprise CIC had been involved with the group from almost the beginning, rallying their own community to produce 1500 headbands for a local hospital.
Amy approached them to become a central hub - using their space at 38 Carrington Street to collect and distribute all the makes across the county. The initial volunteers needed to take some time out, so the Tiger Team stepped in to support the group.
Four months later and face coverings have been added to the items being made and given away to frontline keyworkers and vulnerable groups in the community. Our current total of makes has hit 28,000!
How did we do it?
We have had donations through a Go Fund Me fundraiser and support from the Broxtowe Community Fund, East Midlands Trains and Coop, as well as over 10,000 metres of fabric donated through the National FTLOS group, Scrubs Glorious Scrubs and generous individuals. We have also been running a Buy One Give One initiative for our face coverings to raise funds towards our costs.
It's been a mad, hectic, amazing, heartwarming, fun, frazzled four months!
We've kept on top of requests through the sheer hard work of hundreds of amazing volunteers out in the field making for us every week and helping with logistics to get those makes into us at the Central hub and then out to the people and organisations that need them.
We've put an awful lot of smiles on faces - whether it's the hospital team grateful for the scrubs we've delivered or our volunteer sewers who haven't felt isolated whilst shielding, who have told us it's helped their mental health to have something so positive to focus on, or the team at Central who are blossoming in their new found roles supporting the frontline.
Why is it still needed, surely we are getting back to normal?
We thought we would be starting to slow by now, maybe with a view to closing the group - as many others across the country have done. However, due to various different reasons, including the potential of a second wave, the requests still keep coming in.
It's time for us to make sure that we have finances and supplies in place to combat a second wave of Covid-19. There have already been enquiries for scrubs for the new intake of medical students - that's potentially 2 each for 400 students. We are therefore expecting requests from other areas of the NHS such as student nurses and other disciplines that may need scrubs where they didn't before.
Face coverings don't look like slowing up any time soon, whilst rules on wearing them in more places grows.
How have you arrived at your costs?
We have reviewed what we have paid out over the last four months. In addition we have received large donations of fabric.
Although we hope we will get further donations we also need to be realistic and look at the fabric costs if we need to make a similar number of items over the coming months.
We also have staff and overheads to pay. The Tiger Team has been made up of volunteers with only one member being paid - thanks to funding from the National Emergencies Trust. This isn't sustainable, we need to cover the wages of two other key staff members or risk losing their time and expertise. These paid staff manage the coordination and logistics, project coordination and funding and production and quality control required to keep the project functioning and complying with local Trading Standards requirements (which apply to Covid related donations).
Project costs for a four month period:
Supplies - fabric & haberdashery - £40,000
Rent - £800
Insurance - £60
Website - £100
iPad & Mobile - £260
3 staff members - £25,200
Volunteer costs - £1,700
Total: £68,120
Where will we get the money?
Website sales - £4,120
Funding applications - £30,000
Offline fundraising - £4,000
Donations in kind - fabric etc - £10,000
Crowdfunding Round 1 - £10,000
Crowdfunding extension - £10,000