CUSTOMERS and staff at Browns department stores in York, Helmsley and Beverley have knitted 2,000 squares to help orphaned children in South Africa.

Browns has been backing a Knit-a-Square project, launched in 2008 to help provide blankets for youngsters living in shack settlements, where it can get extremely cold.

Personnel director Angela Horner decided to ask staff and customers to knit squares because her son, Jack, attended Cundall Manor School, near Boroughbridge, where teachers Paula Kuit and Sophie Harris were co-ordinating a Knit-a-Square project with the school’s Craft Enthusiast Adventurers Group.

She said publicity in The Press in November had helped spark a magnificent response from customers.

She added that the squares contributed towards the target for this year of 105,000, which would be enough for 3,000 blankets.