Holiday residents knit thousands of caps for newborns

Recently, I turned on the local TV news while getting ready for work. A story caught my attention, and it was much talked about here in Portland, Ore. A father was arrested for child abuse after shaking and severely injuring his baby son. Why did it happen according to him? The baby wouldn’t stop crying. Sadly, this is a familiar story across the country – parents crack under life’s stresses and their crying newborn becomes a target of frustration.

Holiday Retirement recently partnered with the CLICK for Babies initiative, a campaign organized by the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome. The goal of CLICK for Babies is to teach parents how to deal with prolonged periods of newborn crying and reduce the shaking and abuse of infants.

CLICK for Babies spreads awareness about the Period of PURPLE Crying (the period of time when infant crying increases) by delivering purple knit caps to hospitals that, in turn, send the caps home with newborns and their families along with an educational DVD.

The “click” in CLICK for Babies refers to the sound knitting needles make, and it’s a sound with which many of our Holiday Retirement senior living communities are familiar. We have many residents who are avid knitters, so when offered the opportunity to use their knitting abilities for such a special cause, our residents were thrilled to participate.

In fact, we were overwhelmed with how well our residents responded. About 30 of our communities across the nation participated in the campaign, knitting more than 2,000 caps for the cause! It’s clear our residents love children – their amazing efforts in support of the CLICK for Babies campaign is just one example of how we encourage interest in intergenerational understanding. The knitting enabled our oldest citizens to raise awareness about an issue affecting our youngest citizens.

I want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s partnership with CLICK for Babies. The residents and Holiday Retirement associates who coordinated the effort made a huge impact in their local communities by increasing awareness of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Thank you for donating your time, talent, and compassion for this worthy cause!

You can also visit the CLICK for Babies website at www.clickforbabies.org.