‘Blanket of love’ created with love for boy with rare disease
By Aideen O'Flaherty
A SIX-YEAR-OLD boy has been given a ‘blanket of love’ created by a group of local people as he battles a rare degenerative disease.
Finnstown boy Eoin McStravick Sloan, accompanied by his parents Gary and Avril, was presented with the blanket last month, which was made by local people who donated their time and effort by knitting and crocheting squares of fabric to create a cosy blanket for the young boy.
Eoin with his mother Avril McStravick enjoying the comfort of the blanket
Eoin was diagnosed with an incurable condition known as Metachromatic Leukodystrophy last year, which affects motor function, and he now relies on a wheelchair and requires assistance with all his needs.
The condition also affects speech, sight and hearing.
Maryline Waters, whose sons attend school with Eoin at St Thomas’ Junior National School, came up with the idea to create the blanket for Eoin in June.
Maryline told The Echo: “I was thinking of doing something more symbolic than raising money for Eoin, so I started telling people about my idea for the blanket.
“I was asking people for donations of roughly six inches each of crochet or knitting, which was donated by 60 or 70 people.”
Stitching all the composite parts of the donated materials together took “about 17 hours”, according to Maryline, and the work was carried out over five afternoons in St Thomas’s Junior National School.
A number of people even began learning how to knit and crochet so they could take part in creating Eoin’s blanket.
The Lucan woman added: “It was very moving to see that people are willing to get together to help our community.
“Eoin was laughing and smiling [when he got the blanket] – some people handmade pieces with his favourite cartoon characters like Pikachu and Star Wars. It was worth everything that we put into it.”
You can find out more about Eoin online at www.oureoin.com and you donate to a Go Fund Me account set up for him online at https://www.gofundme.com/eoinfund
