‘There is nothing quite like a handmade gift’

Trinity College students make Boomerang Bags for Gladstone’s essential health workers.

Clinical nurse Hospital and Home Rebecca Gardiner with Trinity deputy principal Kelly Dernehl.

ESSENTIAL health workers from Gladstone hospital will have a stylish and practical way to transport their uniforms after Trinity College donated 50 Boomerang Bags for International Nurses Day.

Trinity College deputy principal Kelly Dernehl said the bags were made as part of the Design and Technology curriculum to answer MP Glenn Butcher’s Facebook call-out for health workers.

“We have been looking for ways we can support community connectiveness and I saw International Nurses Day was coming up so we decided to do something as a college community so we could show our appreciation for nurses,” she said.

“A number of families came and collected bags to decorate and others made their own bags and decorated them.”

The Boomerang Bag initiative was launched after some health workers were abused for allegedly carrying COVID-19 and they needed a practical way to take their uniforms home.

“Students had a choice to decorate the bags however they liked either using fabric paint or pens, or they could just sew motifs onto the bags,” Ms Dernehl said.

“Some students have drawn really beautiful little pictures and written their names on them, a lot of students did bags around the theme of ‘thank you’.”

Executive director of Gladstone-Banana Health Sandy Munro thanked the Trinity students and MP Glenn Butcher for the initiative.

“It is especially gratifying that local students have put their sewing skills to such good use, and to pass on their goodwill to our hardworking hospital staffers,” she said.

“There is nothing quite like a handmade gift, and we say thank you Trinity students.”

Member for Gladstone Glenn Butcher said he had a goal of making two bags per health worker in both private and public hospitals and the goal has been smashed.

“It was so great to see the effort and the personal touches that the students at Trinity put into making these bags for our health heroes,” he said.

“It shows me once again how great this community is when we pull together and support each other”.