Care Wear Volunteers, Inc.

About Care Wear Inc.

Care Wear Volunteers, Inc. works to provide apparel and related items to hospitalized infants and children by recruiting volunteers and providing information (hospital names, addresses, and needs) and patterns for hats, booties, blankets, toys, kimonos, burial garments, etc. in a range of sizes from preemie to adult. Additional requests from hospitals for items for adult patients are included in the hospital or agency listings on the website.

Bio:

Founder Bonnie Hagerman taught in the Home Economics Department at Hood College for 28 years and recently retired from a student support services staff position at the College.  She began Care Wear Volunteers in 1990 as a personal community service effort to provide much-needed apparel (hats, mittens, booties, and kimonos) for premature and low-birthweight infants undergoing treatment in neonatal intensive care units of several children's hospitals in the Washington, DC area.   Because of the high demand for these items Bonnie began recruiting others to join the effort in 1991.   As of December 2011, there are approximately 1400 names on the mailing list for the quarterly newsletter and many others read the newsletter on the organization's website (http://www.carewear.org).    Now retired from Hood College, Bonnie devotes her time to Care Wear Volunteers and hopes to expand the number of participants and the number of hospitals & social-service agencies served.  

Care Wear Volunteers, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.  Participants in this effort have no rules or regulations, no quotas, no membership fees or meetings to attend.   Participants provide the supplies for projects and deliver (or mail) completed items to the hospital or agency of their choice.    Bonnie encourages the support of local hospitals (even if that hospital is not on the hospital list) in order to help friends and neighbors and save postage expenses. 

Links:
Care Wear Inc.
Patterns