“There are a lot of great knitting and crocheting groups out there…I think the difference and why ours is growing is that people want to be doing something for their community.” With over 380 members and growing, Mary looks to the future and hopes GOG will continue to grow so it can help the Canberra community. “It’s been a crazy ride for me! I never expected anything like this.”
GOG has officially become a charity to bring comfort to the community but Mary says in her wildest dreams she never thought it would go this far. Late last year GOG received funding from the ACT Government through its COVID-19 Mental Health and Wellness Innovations Grant to make the wellness workshops available to the general public along with knitting and crochet kits for people to use at home. Unfortunately the week before they were to begin their Mindfulness Workshops, COVID forced them out of the hospital. By the beginning of 2020 it was announced they would be providing a similar wellbeing program for patients and their families in hospital. Moving into the important area of wellbeing in 2019, GOG not only offers donated items to comfort patients but runs Knitting for Mindfulness workshops to promote the mental health benefits of the craft.īeginning as a Knitting for Mindfulness workshop for the ICU nurses and doctors, the workshops were so successful that GOG took the proposal to the Volunteers Services. “Chris still keeps the beanie and he always comes in and talks to our group.” “His sister walked into the room and saw that beanie and instantly it changed from that clinical area…she walked in and said, ‘My goodness that is such a good omen, my grandad had a beanie like this and now he’s looking down on Chris’…Her brother was so ill they didn’t expect him to survive and when she saw that beanie she felt that positivity and strength coming from her grandad.” “Very early on when I knitted one of my first scrappy beanies, one of the patients in the hospital named Chris was very ill,” says Mary. Inspired by one of the first beanies she donated, GOG is named after the good omens Mary’s goodies bring. Mary soon found herself hosting knitting groups and as the nurses and doctors asked for more, comfort dolls for adults and kids joined the donations pile.įinally, Mary realised the group needed a name. Spending every spare moment knitting beanies, scarves and quilts, Mary’s friends soon joined her and word spread through the community. “I was like ‘Really?!’ so I just started sending them to her, as many as I could make.” It can’t warm itself and you lose a lot of heat from your head so beanies can save lives” says Mary. “Kath told me if you are in an accident, or you’ve gone through trauma, your body starts to shut down. “When I went to look online, I couldn’t easily find where to donate them but then I remembered that one of the mums at the school where I work, Kathleen, worked at the hospital,” she says.Įxplaining to Mary that her donations could save lives in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Kathleen asked Mary to knit beanies for the hospital. Working through the scraps of wool leftover from her childhood and knitting endless beanies, Mary decided she wanted to donate the growing collection to charity to help Canberra’s homeless in the cold.
“I was just loving it so I started knitting pussyhat beanies for all of my girlfriends and everybody I could think of….then it got to the point where everyone was like ‘we’ve had enough’,” she adds laughing.
“That year she went through chemo and lost all of her hair and I thought ‘let’s make some beanies to wear to walk around the lake’…it was a pussyhat beanie.” “My mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer and each year I had been doing the Mother’s Day Classic,” says Mary. Posted on 5 August, 2021 There are not many charities that can say they began with the knitting of a pink pussyhat beanie, but Good Omen Goodeze is no ordinary organisation.īringing comfort to the Canberra community one stitch at a time, Good Omen Goodeze (GOG) began when teacher’s aide Mary Liondi-Barlow fell back in love with her childhood obsession of knitting and crocheting.Įnjoying the creativity and mental health benefits linked to the relaxing craft, when her mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017 Mary decided to use her knitting to bring some fun and comfort to the hospital room.
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