September 2020

We don't know from day to day what the news will be bringing us, but one thing for certain is that Minnesota winters are cold and everyone needs a hat.

This is our 14th year for collecting hats and distributing them to schools, shelters and social service agencies serving those in need. With covid19 and social distancing, knitting groups aren't getting together...we are at home knitting by ourselves.  I am asking you to spread the word to your friends...hats for kids, women and men.  More information about the project can be found in the blog.

One of our knitters has written up her favorite hat pattern for charity knitting including several sizes which we are including in the blog. Check out the Very Basic Knit Hat now in the Knitting Patterns tab.

Hat distribution will begin in October and continue as long as we are receiving hats.  We will be doing things a bit differently this year...I will be coordinating drop off sites with school social workers and also taking donations to area food shelves.

My mailing address:  5314 Penn Ave. So. 

                                  Minneapolis, MN 55419

Thanks for giving "The Gift of Warmth"

Barbara Melom

barbmelom@gmail.com

April 2020

Knitters all across America have set aside their knitting needles and are now sitting at their sewing machines making masks to be donated to nursing homes, shelters and hospitals. We’re living out the saying: “Just because you’re the only person in the room, doesn’t mean you’re alone.”  We call each other to compare notes or share information about web sites where new mask patterns are shown. We share complaints about shoulders and backs getting stiff before we reach our self-imposed productivity goals. We share bad jokes intended to keep us “in stitches”.    …… and we share the good feeling of being part of an army of people rising to the shared challenge of getting through this life-changing trauma as a community bonded by caring and doing.

And The People Stayed Home

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.      Kitty O'Meara

https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/irish-american-teachers-poem-covid19-outbreak

Your House Just Burned Down

MERRY CHRISTMAS

On Christmas Day, a raging fire took the homes of 250 people living in the Francis Drake Hotel in Minneapolis. Erupting in the middle of the night, the fire tore through this historic building serving as rental housing for low income people and temporary homeless shelter for Hennepin County families. That first night, city busses provided safe sources of warmth – the first step to refuge while the Red Cross, the Minneapolis Foundation, churches and other organizations mobilized to provide care for these newly displaced neighbors.

And the city turned out in force. Downtown near the still-burning Drake became an open air rescue site where we brought whatever might be useful to someone who had just lost everything. That part of downtown became a beautiful traffic snarl as people from every neighborhood brought everything from diapers and blankets to coats, shoes and toothbrushes.

And it was a wonderful feeling to bring some Hats for the Homeless to this site of tragedy.

We brought the colors of 

warmth, care and neighborly 

support to people who had just 

lost their precarious place in 

life one more time. We will 

continue to work with service 

providers to bring the gift of 

warmth as these disaster 

victims work toward stability.

Hats 4 the Homeless began distributing hats and scarves in early November to schools and social service agencies serving those in need.  Luckily we still had hats on hand to deliver to folks who had just lost their home in the fire.   

Thank you KNITTERS!  We do make a difference.