New Zealand Lottery Grants Board Distribution of Funds

Waikato Community Committee
OPERATION COVER-UP
The golden years of senior life can lose their
glow for many older women who become
widows, whose family live elsewhere or who
just find they have fewer comings and goings
in their lives than before.
In the Waikato town of Cambridge, with a
grant of $1,500 from the Lottery Waikato
Community Committee, Operation Cover-Up
organises a fortnightly get-together of about
80 knitters in a church lounge, where they
knit blankets for orphans of Romania,
Moldova and Ukraine.
The women love the companionship and
doing something useful for others. They really
appreciate the opportunity to get out and
socialise. “It gives me a reason to get up in
the morning,” one of the knitters said.
The group is comprised mainly of elderly
women, but there are some younger women
who, because of disability, need the care of
living in a rest home. The knitting sessions
give them companionship and something
meaningful to do.
Twice a year they hold a special morning tea
with a colourful display of all the blankets,
which measure 1.8 x 1.3 metres and are
made up of peggy squares and strips.
Members of the knitting group have viewed,
and been deeply moved by, DVDs of children
each receiving their own special blanket. For
the orphans, who have nothing to call their
own, these are precious.
Operation Cover-Up has used its grant to
replenish its wool cupboard and carry on
the good work of keeping seniors involved in
their community and orphans warm in their
beds at night.
34 Lottery Grants Record 2008–2009 Regional Community Committees