Community Corner

Good Turn of the Day: Girl Scouts Deliver 480 Knit Caps for Newborns

Three from La Mesa Troop 4161 crocheted "teeny beanies" over three months for Sharp Grossmont.

Updated at 10 a.m. Wednesday

Katie Stinchcomb, her cousin Emma Stinchcomb and fellow La Mesa Girl Scout Kaimilani Gilman are giving hundreds of babies a warm and stylish start in life.

Members of Troop 4161 led by Katie’s mother, Bonnie, the trio delivered about 480 “teeny beanies” in three white-plastic kitchen bags Friday afternoon to Sharp Grossmont Hospital.

“Besides helping them retain body heat, [the knitted caps] make [newborns] feel more comfortable,” along with swaddling—“and they look so darn cute,” said Katrina Tomik, who supervises volunteers at Sharp Grossmont Hospital.

Adult volunteers will distribute the crocheted caps to new moms over the next two months in the Women’s Health Center at the La Mesa hospital—along with children’s books, library cards and other useful items.

Katie, 10, is a fifth-grader at Murdock Elementary School.  Emma and Kaimilani 11, are both sixth-graders at College Prep Middle School and also La Mesa residents.

They began learning how to crochet in July, but didn’t start serious work on the knit caps until September, said Bonnie Stinchcomb, who works at National University in San Diego.

Friday’s delivery of the multicolored caps was the first from the Girl Scout troop. Stinchcomb oversaw quality control—since early efforts would have better fit a Barbie doll.  The knitting patterns came off the Internet, Stinchcomb said.

Hospital officials also required the caps to be made under hygienic conditions—no knitting in a kitchen where garlic was cooking, for example.  They were delivered bagged and with instructions for the 300 births monthly at Sharp Grossmont.

Linda Van Fulpen, manager of volunteer services, accepted the caps, telling the girls: “Thank you very much on behalf of Sharp Grossmont Hospital, and all our little babies born here. Thank you so much for for the hats—we hope you’ll keep making them.”

The girls said yes, they would.

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