A community knitting enterprise in New Zealand has been catapulted into the spotlight after Britain’s Prince Harry put one of their beanies on his son, Archie, but the group has been so swamped with orders that they hit the brakes on accepting any more, lest their knitters feel the pressure and stop having “fun.”
To mark the new year, the Sussexes posted a picture of Harry and Archie on vacation in Canada, both wearing beanies.
“It was a complete surprise, and really exciting,” said Becky Smith, cofounder of Make Give Live, a social enterprise that donates one hat to charity for every one sold.
The group has received thousands of orders for its hats, which are stitched in New Zealand libraries and cafes by volunteers.
“It’s gone crazy, the orders have gone through the roof,” Smith said. “But there will be a delay for hats ordered now — the nature of our knitting groups is about community and nurturing mental health, so we don’t want pressure for anyone to make loads of hats in one week.”
“Hats take time, they are made by real people. We don’t want to become high-pressured, we will keep it fun,” she added.
There are 11 groups stitching hats for Make Give Live, including one for newly arrived refugees at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre in Auckland.
The group was founded in the Whangaparoa library in 2016 and gifted Archie’s hat to his mother, Megan, when she visited New Zealand in late 2018.
Until the Instagram post, Smith said that the group had forgotten about the gift.
In one month last year, the group received 45 orders. On Thursday, after the Sussexes’ post, it received more than 300 in a single day.
Smith said that the group does not track who individually receives donated hats, but added that the counterpart to Archie’s could have gone to a homeless person, a deprived child, a newly arrived refugee or a rough sleeper.
In a poll by the social enterprise, 80 percent of knitters involved said that the weekly group “makes them feel less lonely,” while 78 percent said that it made them less anxious and 78 percent felt that it “gives them purpose.”
“It’s not just a hat, it’s so much more than a hat,” Smith said.
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