Senior Citizen of the Year Karen Giles’ passion for creating baby hampers and helping Geraldton mothers

A passionate volunteer has hit a big milestone, finishing her 900th baby hamper given to new mothers after a local baby store recently donated leftover stock when it shut down. Former theatre ward clerk Karen Giles, or nanna to some, worked at St John of God Hospital for 14 years until she recently retired and took up a new hobby — taking in donations and providing quality hampers for newborn babies and their parents. Mrs Giles spends her day in her workroom filled with tubs of baby clothes, designing hampers for girls, boys and Indigenous packs for GRAMS patients. “It takes you half an hour to make each one if you want to do it properly. I don’t want people to come back and say they’ve got (fabric) pills or little bits of cotton hanging off — they never come back and say that to me,” she said. The initiative started out with making small gift packs for private patients at St John of God, but when demand grew during COVID and public patients were admitted to the hospital, Mrs Giles said she noticed there was a “huge need” for the gifts. She reached out to the community with a post to Facebook Marketplace calling out for donations, stating “if you don’t sell your stuff, would you like to donate to me” and “if you don’t sell it please consider me”. Now she receives hundreds of donations each month, including a big donation from Tiny Giant, which delivered new products for the cause when they closed up shop in January. Mrs Giles said she wouldn’t pursue a business as she was already retired, but loved what she did. “I’d started doing these before I retired so I haven’t embraced retirement, I don’t want to. I’m 70 this year so I want to stay young because I feel it,” she said. For her tireless efforts giving back to the community, Mrs Giles received the 2023 Senior Citizen of the Year Award at the City of Greater Geraldton Australia Day event last month. Mrs Giles also works behind the scenes caring for children of mums struggling to cope without support, or who just need a break to pamper themselves. “I’ve been doing it since I was a teenager, I’m a baby freak,” Mrs Giles said. “We’ve had about 25 through here.” Mrs Giles and her husband have a daughter who lives away and twin sons (one died five years ago) and she said babysitting children kept her from slowing down after stopping work. “I don’t take any babies if they’ve got grandparents or they’ve got support in Geraldton, it’s the girls that have come in to town, their husband works away and they’ve got nobody,” she said. The private hospital hampers are subsidised by St John of God Auxiliary, who reimburse the costs, but all products going to public hospitals are created from pre-loved goods. Mrs Giles reminded expectant mothers they were all entitled to a baby hamper at the hospital. She said sometimes hampers could be forgotten because it was voluntary and agency staff might not be aware of the initiative. “Every mum that’s expecting a baby or having a baby is entitled to the pack so please ask your midwife for it,” she said. Mrs Giles said she looked forward to hitting 1000 hampers this year after reaching her 900th milestone after two years of volunteering. “Tiny Giant’s huge donation was greatly appreciated and I thank St John of God Auxiliary for reimbursing me,” she said.