ORANGE PARK – Janet Goulet said she’s not able to work. The children at Orange Park Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit would disagree.

Despite being declared permanently disabled, the Middleburg woman maintains a fulltime job fulfilling her sense of belonging – along with providing comfort and happiness to the smallest children at the hospital.

Goulet exceeded her goal by crocheting 36 afghans, 50 hats and 50 pairs of booties for the neonatal unit.

“My goals, I set in January, Goulet said shortly after delivering several bags of her handmade work to the nursing staff. “I work from January to October. I’m disabled and I can’t work. This kind of situation can cause depression. I started feeling unproductive. I started thinking. I wanted to do something that’s productive, but I wanted it to be for other people.

“It’s not paid work, monetarily. But it pays a lot because I’m a Christian. I do pray before we deliver them for each family who will get them. It’s mostly to keep my mental state healthy and to feel that I’m being productive. Somehow, I want to do something for somebody.”

Goulet also crocheted 12 doilies for the nurses in NICU.

Goulet first was approached by a neighbor who worked for March of Dimes to make outfits for ailing children. A couple years later, she decided to deliver her creations directly to the hospital. She originally planned to work with the naval hospital. But she drove past ORMC to the way to the navy base, and she decided to stop there first.

“I went to the front desk and they called up [to the neonatal unit] and they said they’d be happy to take them,” Goulet said. “Here I am. I’m still doing it 12 years later.”

Goulet starts her ambitious project in January with a goal to be completed by October. She tries to crochet every day, but sometimes that’s difficult, she said.

“It’s hard to say how much I crotchet every day,” she said. “Some days I can’t crochet at all. Some days I can only do it for an hour or two. And some days I can work a good three or four hours a day. I do it watching TV so it’s not like it’s boring. I just keep plugging away.”

Crochet is a French word that means “small hook.” Goulet said she uses a hook to interloop yarn into a variety of colorful patterns.

“Every day I crochet. Each blanket, depending on the pattern and how difficult it is, probably takes eight to 10 hours, maybe 12 if it’s hard,” she said. “I’ve been crocheting since I was 21 and I just turned 65. I think I pretty much have that down pat.

“I’d like to learn how to knit, but I’m not that coordinated with two hands.”

Goulet said she plans to match, if not beat, this year’s gift in 2021. For her, the work is spiritually and physically therapeutic. For the children at the NICU, it’s a gift that provides kindness at the most-critical time.

“Every stitch matters,” she said.

Which is a fruitful fulltime job under any circumstance,