HOPE – Sixth grade students at Hope Academy of Public Service are appealing to the community for help to complete a project for hospitalized children.

Fleece by the yard is needed to create fleece “love blankets” for patients at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock for American Heart Month in February.

“This will be the third year we have partnered with Arkansas Children’s Hospital to make these fleece lovey blankets for them,” HAPS Public Service Curriculum Specialist Joan Crowder said. “We have not begun to work on getting the fabric ready because we need donations of fleece for the project.”

HAPS sixth grade students will go into assembly mode on Jan. 25 from 8 a.m. until noon to create the blankets and prepare them for transport to ACH, Crowder said.

HAPS teacher Shannon Hawthorne, whose daughter Ava was a patient at ACH in 2017 attested to the need for the project.

“Shortly before that, she and I delivered the blankets to ACH,” Hawthorne said. “And, at that time, we had also done hygiene kits and snacks. I had worked as a teacher on creating the blankets and kits.”

She said both her daughter and the staff at ACH embraced the idea.

“Ava really did like the fleece blanket she had and clung to it a lot while we were there,” Hawthorne said.

The family rooms in the recovery units at ACH were the distribution points for the blankets, she said.

“Many of the units have family waiting areas that they try to make as home-like as possible,” Hawthorne said. “They also have a receptionist type person there that helps the families with anything they need. She kept the blankets at the desk; and, she told me that many of the families were asking for them and really liked them.”

Hawthorne said older children at ACH used multiple blankets to create full-sized blankets by tying them together. She said the ACH staff also used all of the hygiene and snack bags provided by HAPS students.

Donations of fleece by the yard may be made at the HAPS campus office, 601 W. Sixth St., during regular school hours.