A CHURCH craft group has created more than a 100 fleeces for local charities after hearing about a child in Teesside who had no warm clothes to wear in November.

Great Ayton Methodist Church’s Craft and Coffee group have created dozens of brightly coloured, warm fleeces to be distributed to charities helping vulnerable people cope with the cold weather.

Kate Harvey, from the group, said they were inspired to take up the mission after a friend told her about the case of a child in Middlesbrough who had no warm clothing.

“I had a conversation with a friend who runs an asylum project in Middlesbrough who said she had come across a child in the city last November who had come from Pakistan and had no warm clothing to wear,” she said.

“At that point I found pieces of fleece in my cupboard and made them into two jumpers.”

Mrs Harvey discussed her idea - for creating fleeces for people lacking proper warm clothing - with the church craft group and they decided to make 100 in celebration of the church's centenary this year.

With the help of donations of funding and materials from Boyes haberdashery, the group set to work. The jumpers were made from cheerfully-coloured fleece material as it can easily be washed and dried without proper washing facilities.

Some fleeces have been donated to Stockton’s Salvation Army, while others have been sent to the Methodist Asylum Project in Middlesbrough, the A Way Out Project for at-risk women and children in Stockton and The Smiles Foundation in Romania.