Alfred (Alfie) Date, might not be with us today, but what he left in his legacy is the idea of ‘age is just a number’. The oldest man of Australia spent his days knitting small wool sweaters for injured penguins in the time of crisis.
In 2001, when an oil spill disaster struck, the wildlife clinic at Phillip Island Nature Park was prepared, with hundreds of little wool sweaters on hand.
Shortly after transferring into a care home in southwest Australia, Alfie began knitting the ‘easy single-rib and double-rib sweaters.’
When he discovered he had a flair for knitting, two nurses approached him, regarding the Phillip Island Nature Park, to gauge his interest in knitting for the penguins.
483 little penguins were taken to the rehabilitation centre after a spill on Phillip Island, with 96% of them being released back into the wild.
The centre eventually didn’t require any more penguin sweaters, but the fact that so many small penguins’ lives were spared because to Alfie’s efforts cannot be forgotten.