By Katherine Martinko / Source: TreeHugger

Despite battling cancer and living in an assisted care facility, this elderly man accepted a heartwarming challenge to help vulnerable preemies.

Premature babies will be warm and cozy in their incubators this winter, thanks to the kindness of Ed Moseley. He is an 86-year-old grandfather who lives at an assisted care facility in Acworth, Georgia, near Atlanta. When the staff at his facility announced a challenge to knit caps for prematurely born babies at a local hospital, Moseley took them up on it, despite never having knitted anything before in his life.

He asked his daughter to get him a knitting kit, so he—a former engineer—could teach himself. He told ABC News:

“It comes with the right size loom and the right tools to help you knit one. I just followed the instructions. It was easy. Somehow I had never knitted, and I always associated knitting with a bunch of needles but this looked pretty doable for me. I went through two or three before I came out with a good finished product.”

Initially it took him three hours to complete one, but now he can knit a cap in just under an hour—something he enjoys doing while watching golf on TV. Since taking up the challenge, Moseley has personally knit 55 caps, while inspiring many others to learn to knit, even offering classes to fellow residents of the center.

As a result, an impressive 300 hats were presented to the local hospital on November 17, World Prematurity Day. The executive director told ABC News that the assisted care facility had hoped to gather 200 hats from the eight different centers in the region, so to have them all come from Moseley’s center alone is astonishing and heartwarming.

Moseley is currently undergoing chemotherapy himself, but he has no plans on stopping knitting, now that he’s discovered a new pastime. His new goal is to produce 30 tiny hats per month. He says:

“When someone appreciates something you do, that makes you feel good, naturally. I got a lot of enjoyment doing this and now I’ve graduated to large caps. I’m doing caps for all my grandkids.”

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