The Residents’ Committee came up with the idea at their first meeting after the Canterbury earthquake in February. With full support from the other Sunningdale residents and staff, they took up a collection to purchase fabric and commissioned fellow resident, Mrs Eunice Robinson, to construct the quilt.

 

Mrs Robinson took approximately a week to make a full-sized, single bed quilt and then started work on four smaller knee-rugs, to be sent to the Rannerdale Veterans Hospital and Home in Upper Riccarton, Christchurch.

 

Selwyn Sunningdale Village – formerly Sunningdale RSA Veterans Home – comprises a 33-bed rest home and eight rental units and provides care services and retirement accommodation for people over 65. It is currently hosting a Christchurch ‘refugee’ who was evacuated from one of the rest homes damaged in February’s earthquake.

 

The Village was acquired last year by The Selwyn Foundation – one of New Zealand’s largest charitable providers of retirement living, aged care and community services to older people. The Foundation has recently presented a cheque for $750,000 to the Bishop of Christchurch, to be used for the care of older people and their carers in the aftermath of the earthquake, and has also made grants to the Christchurch Association of Anglican Women and to the Christchurch City Mission.