Definition: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Input: Australia's oldest man has spent a lot of his days knitting sweaters for little penguins. 
  
 Alfred 'Alfie' Date spoke to 9 Stories about how his inability to say 'no' to favours got him into making the miniature animal clothes. 
  
 The jerseys were requested from Victoria's Phillip Island Penguin Foundation in 2013, to assist the survival of little penguins after an oil spill. Little penguins are a species of penguin only found in southern Australia and New Zealand, with a lone colony of 32,000 remaining on Phillip Island. 
  
 The 109-year-old, who lives in a retirement home on the New South Wales Central Coast, was asked by two nurses to help make the sweaters, as they had heard he was an experienced knitter. It was a request he could not refuse. Using heavy wool provided by the nurses, Alfie put his 80 years of knitting skills to good use and got to work. 
  
 Alfie Date speaks to 9 Stories about his love of knitting. Image: 9 Stories screengrab. 
  
 The self-taught knitter, who refined his skills after making a baby jacket for his nephew in the 1930s, has seven children and 20 grandchildren, and "about the same amount" of great grandchildren. According to a profile on The Daily Telegraph in 2014, Alfie remembers the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and the declaration of World War one. He told the newspaper his secret to a long life is simply "waking up every morning." 
  
 Donations of the knitted penguin outfits were received from all over the world. The foundation says this "is not a fashion statement" but instead they help the little creatures if they are affected by an oil spill. Oil can make their feathers stick together, allowing water to get to their inner layers. This causes the little penguins to get cold and not be able to hunt due to heaviness. 
  
 An oily penguin gets around in his sweater. Image: AP Images/Associated Press 
  
 When oiled penguins arrive at the foundation, they are given a jacket to wear so that they don't consume the toxins or preen their feathers. In 2001, 438 penguins were affected in an oil spill at Phillip Island and by using the knitted outfits, 96% of the penguins were rehabilitated at the clinic, according to the foundation's website. 
  
 The centre currently has "plenty of penguin jumpers (sweaters) at this time donated by generous knitters across the globe" and has asked for no more donations from eager knitters. 
  
 Today, Alfie keeps his ageing hands active by knitting scarves for friends and beanies for premature babies. It is a good thing Alfie never worked out how to say 'no.' 
  
 A penguin in a knitted sweater. Image: Rex Features via AP Images/Associated Press 
  
 Correction: The penguins shown in the photo at the top of this story are stuffed toy penguins displaying the sweaters at Phillip Island, this was not mentioned in the original caption. ||||| Australia's oldest person never learned to say no to favours, which is how he found himself knitting tiny jumpers for little penguins. 
  
 When Phillip Island's Penguin Foundation requested keen knitters to donate their time and yarn to make woollen jumpers for little penguins to wear in the event of an oil spill in March last year, responses came from around the world. 
  
 One man caught up in the net was then-108-year-old Alfred 'Alfie' Date, the oldest person in Australia and a prolific knitter. 
  
 Soon after arriving at his new home at an aged-care village on the NSW Central Coast, Alfred was asked if he could put his well-known skills to use. 
  
 "I think I'd been in here about 12 hours, might have been 13," Alfred, now 109, told 9Stories from a chair in his humble room near Umina Beach. 
  
 "The two girls (nurses) come in to me and say 'We believe you can knit.'" 
  
 It was about 80 years ago when the great-great-grandfather's sister-in-law handed him a pair of knitting needles and some wool for the first time. 
  
 "She said knit me a jumper," Alfred recalled. "And that was my first effort — a jumper for the boy." 
  
 That boy was Alfred's nephew, born around 1931, and now "old enough to be your grandfather," Alfred said. 
  
 Alfred found himself in the same situation with the little penguins' jumpers because he says he always tries to accommodate any request. 
  
 "The girls who used to work for me, they'll tell you I'm a sucker. I can't say no," said Alfred. 
  
 "It's a good way of getting along in life. You make friends all the time but you don't make a fool of yourself either." 
  
 The nurses left Alfred some heavy wool (because, he says, "if you're using a light wool you're wasting your time") and he was soon ticking away at "easy single-rib and double-rib" stitch jerseys for the foundation based on Victoria's Phillip Island, home to a large colony of little penguins. 
  
 When the foundation put the call out for knitted jumpers last year the response was overwhelming. 
  
 "We do not need any further jumpers," the foundation's Lauren Jones said. 
  
 "We are incredibly grateful for the donations we have received and the time and effort creating them." 
  
 Similar in appearance to an AFL Guernsey, the marine-bird knitwear is used in the event of an oil spill. Not only toxic for the birds, the grease mats their outer feathers, allowing water to seep through to the finer layer of down. 
  
 Oily birds become distressed, cold and less-effective hunters. They can also swallow the sludge when they pick at clumped-up feathers. Slipping the knitwear on them helps prevent this. 
  
 The jumper rehabilitation method was proved in 2001 when 438 little penguins were covered in oil following a spill near Phillip Island. The jumpers ensured 96 percent of the marine birds were successfully returned to the wild. 
  
 "We are incredibly grateful for the donations we have received and the time and effort creating them," Ms Jones said about the recent knitters' efforts — not to mention the fact they put someone as talented as Alfred to good use. 
  
 While the foundation knew he was officially their "most senior little penguin jumper knitter," they did not know Alfred was also the oldest living Australian and likely one of the world's oldest knitters. 
  
 "We knew he was over 100 years old, but had no idea he was declared the oldest person in Australia," said Danene Jones who also works at the foundation. 
  
 "It's amazing and we feel quite privileged to have him dedicating his time and effort to the Penguin Foundation." 
  
 Alfred has passed his craft down through three more generations and still knits scarfs for friends and little beanies for premature babies, despite his centenarian hands losing some of their dexterity. 
  
 "I like to make it without mistakes and I don't excuse myself for doing it," he said. "(But) I think there is an excuse for a person who's gone beyond the normal span of life." |||||
Output:
When Alfred "Alfie" Date moved into a new retirement home on the New South Wales Central Coast last year, his reputation preceded him. But it wasn't his title of Australia's oldest person that the facility's nurses were most intrigued by. "I think I'd been in here about 12 hours, might have been 13," says Date, now 109. Then "the two girls come in to me and say, 'We believe you can knit.'" It turned out that Victoria's Phillip Island Penguin Foundation was in need of sweaters for a species known as little penguins, affected by an oil spill. Date, who first learned to knit when his sister-in-law handed him wool and a pair of knitting needles 80 years ago, was the perfect man for the job, 9Stories reports. "I'm a sucker," he says. "I can't say no." Oil mats a penguin's feathers, allowing water to penetrate the inner layers of down, which causes them to become cold and distressed. The sweaters keep the animals from preening their feathers and consuming the toxins, Mashable reports. "We feel quite privileged to have [Date] dedicating his time and effort to the Penguin Foundation," says a rep, noting the foundation has now met its sweater quota. But Date—who told the Northern District Times his secret to a long life is "waking up every morning"—is still knitting scarfs for friends and caps for premature babies. "I like to make it without mistakes and I don't excuse myself for doing it," he says. But "I think there is an excuse for a person who's gone beyond the normal span of life." (In other animal news, your dog can read your facial expressions.)