THOUGHTFUL schoolgirls have formed a team to make friendship bracelets for patients in the children’s ward at Great Western Hospital.

The Little Helpers, which is seeking more support, has already donated hundreds of woollen bands to help put a smile on the faces of sick and injured children.

Team founder Teri Farthing, 11, of Penhill, was inspired to make the friendship bracelets after seeing the clinical plastic wrist bands which patients have to wear.

She said: “It has been really successful. We have given away lots and lots of friendship bracelets to the hospital and they are running out fast so we have to keep making them really quickly.

“We are looking for more help from anyone to make the bracelets. The benefit is just really the experience of knowing that we are being able to help a child in hospital.”

The Little Helpers, set up about a month ago, is the youth section of Penhill group the Butterfly Fundraisers, which raises money for good causes.

The members, aged from 11 to 14, are Teri and her friends Emily Baker, Katie Smith, Bethanie Hale, Rachel Delahay, Kiara Wakley, Laura Brown and Trisha Mills.

Teri, a pupil at St Joseph’s Catholic College, distributes bags full of wool to the other girls, who then plait the bracelets and hand them back to Teri.

The first batch of 100 bracelets was handed to the hospital about a month ago followed by a second batch last week. The bracelets are available to any child that undergoes treatment.

The team has received donations of wool from large wool manufacturers but is seeking more wool from the community, as well as people willing to help make bracelets. In the future, the girls also plan to make knitted blankets for sick and premature babies at the hospital’s special care baby unit.

For more information or to join in, visit www.butterflyfundraisers.co.uk