Star date: 10th October 2020

THE MOTHER OF 18,000 COMFORTS

Pat Mayle, from Eccles, has been awarded the MBE for services to Girlguiding and to the COVID-19 response. From Pat's initial idea for Girlguides to create comfort bags for bereavement wards five years ago, around 18,000 have now been made throughout the North West.

The scheme has been has been extended to include hospital emergency and homeless admissions, and for COVID-19 patients and NHS staff.

Full details here...

"Surprised" and "Shocked" were the initial responses of Pat Mayle to an email informing her that she had been awarded the MBE for services to Girlguiding and to the COVID-19 response...

"It never entered into my head that I would ever get anything like that" says a bemused Pat. Indeed, she adds that when she first began to involve Girlguiding in creating comfort bags for bereavement wards in 2015, "I never thought it would take off."

The comfort bag, full of hotel sized toiletries, paper and pen, were originally handed to the bereavement team at Salford Royal Hospital. And in the first year, nearly one thousand bags, all sewn, made-up and donated by girls and young women in guiding, compete with a label specifying the guiding group, were distributed to all wards. The scheme was later extended to include people coming in for emergency treatments and to homeless people.

In March, Pat got a call asking for help as COVID-19 patients were stopped from having any personal belongings, and 2,600 comfort bags were delivered to hospitals in the North West through her network of volunteers and units. Meanwhile, for NHS staff, there were seven hundred treat bags as well as one thousand laundry bags for them to store their scrubs prior to washing.

Comfort bags also went out with food parcels to families in need. To date, around 18,000 bags have gone out in the North West, with 9,000 of those in Greater Manchester West, which includes Salford Royal Hospital, Trafford General, St Anns Hospice and lots more community settings. The bags have also supported refugees, women staying in refuges, and the victims and relatives of the Arena bombing.

Pat is the first to acknowledge that the whole Girlguiding comfort bag project has been a huge team effort, like all other projects she has been involved with after being a guide leader for over fifty years...

"People say that it must take up a lot of time but I answer 'Yes but you get more than that back'" Pat concludes "It has brought me incredible friendships and support..."

And now, an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List...