Ex-nurse Tracy Francis started sewing Christmas hearts as a hobby, but soon realised gifting them helped lift the spirits of the community.
“I got involved probably about July this year and it was just something I saw on a local Facebook page and because it involved craft, I thought ‘I’ve got to go do this’,” she said.
“As it was getting closer to Christmas, I started making Christmas hearts for family and friends and I thought about sending some over to Sister Jessica who was a nun in Lima (Peru).
“She said the spirits of the staff were low and it had been a very hard couple of years because of Covid and this would be lovely, so I sent a package of hearts over to Lima.
“I also gave one to a local cafe owner in Beenleigh and she cried– she said ‘I’ve had such a terrible year that this just made me feel so special.’
“And then I got this bright idea, why don’t I do it for our local hospital?”
So Ms Francis set the goal to make 350 hearts to give to every nurse at Logan Hospital, to honour them and their service to the public.
But she knew she couldn’t do it alone.
So she took to Facebook to make a call out for “kind strangers” in the community who may want to help.
“I had given myself this mammoth task and I thought, well, I’m not really going to be able to achieve it on my own,” she said.
“I would never have achieved it without the help of five really special people that just came on board and gifted me this stash of hearts.”
With the help of the community and Sewing Lair, who supported the project by offering their space free of charge, Ms Francis well and truly achieved her goal.
Last Friday she dropped off about 500 hearts to Logan Hospital to spread “comfort and joy”.
“You feel good in your own heart because you’ve made someone else’s life joyful,” she said.
“The nurse unit manager expressed that there were some staff that had their own personal tragedies throughout the year which affected the other staff as well, and she said that by receiving these, it lifted their spirits.
“People carry them around in their pockets or in their purse and if it’s related or associated with some sort of tragedy in their life or anything like that, they can think of that person that they loved just by pulling the heart out and looking at it.”
Ms Francis also delivered a package of handmade hearts to the Chinchilla Police Station following the tragic passing of two constables last week.
The pocket hearts are sewn as part of the 1000 Hearts Project, a national project offering people a symbol of compassion and care.
