A former patient at Velindre Cancer Centre, Mrs Julie Smith, created the Chick Knit Appeal back in 1996 during treatment for second cancer.  She was so grateful for the wonderful way that she was treated, she wanted to give something back to the hospital and take her mind off the difficult months ahead of her, and the chick knit was born!! 

The pattern was created by one of the volunteers at the hospital gift shop, Joyce Davies, and with help from local press, who published Julie’s story and the pattern, and many keen knitters, a staggering 250,000 chicks were knitted and £250,000 was raised for Velindre!  

Julie was awarded the MBE from the Queen because of the success of the Chick Knit Appeal.  Julie said: “it was wonderful to receive the award because I felt that it was an honour to the hundreds of people that helped make the Chick Knit Appeal a success, because without their help it would never have been possible.”

This year, we are re-launching the Chick Knit Appeal with the hope of making it bigger and better than ever before, but to do this we need your help!

If you are a knitter or you would like to learn knitting; maybe you could have knitting parties or start knitting clubs at work or schools, we want to hear from you!!  We can mail you the pattern or you can download it here.

If knitting isn’t your thing, then you can sell them for us instead.  Just contact us and let us know how many you want and we will deliver them to you.