Hats to Warm the Homeless

5 Crocheted hats to warm our homeless here in Ohio from Karen H in Illinois.  Isn't it wonderful when help crosses state lines!  These 5 hats are are crocheted nice and tight with small stitches so will be nice and warm.  I love the striped one, reminds me a bumble bee!  Bumble Bees make me think of summer and warmer weather, and that makes me smile....BIG TIME!

Thank you Karen H for your thoughtful donation, it's greatly appreciated.

Have you checked out our April Showers Campaign?  If not, please do.  Click the badge in the sidebar.  Please feel free to add the badge to your blog.  Help us spread the word.

**Have you noticed the number of posts growing?  Hope so, we're getting close to another milestone.  With this post #386, only 14 more blog posts are needed to reach 400!  Wow, that really makes me smile.

**Have you added yourself (bloggers) as a followering of this blog?  If not, please do.

***Remember, you do not need to be a blogger to leave comments.  We encourage you all to leave comments each time you visit, so we know you were here.  If you're not a blogger, simply type your comment, then click name and url and leave the url blank empty.  That's all there is to it.  Visiting, and commenting are very helpful and they're both things that can be done, even for the non knitters and non crocheters out there who'd like to help.***

2011
Scarves 167
Hats 236
Mittens (gloves)59
Socks 62
Slippers 34
Ghans 13
Squares 188
Sweaters 5
Ponchos 4

**Added pattern for fingerless gloves to the tabs across the top of the blog.  Looks like a nice quick and easy pattern folks**

All donations regardless of size and number are valued. All donations are appreciated, and all donations keep someone warm. We help, one stitch at a time. YOU truly DO make a difference. THANK YOU!

April Showers Bring Pain and Suffering

We've all patiently and impatiently awaited the coming of Spring, being tired of the cold winter, tired of the snow and tired of the ice.   We've no doubt heard the saying, "April Showers Bring May Flowers", many times and thought it was a cute saying.  However, April Showers bring pain and suffering doesn't sound so pleasant.  Cold, tired, hungry homeless people living outdoors do indeed have pain and suffer with April Showers.  Temperatures are still cold and uncomfortable, add being wet to that.  When it rains, we come indoors.  When it rains we run to our cars if we're out and about running errands.  When it rains, we grab an umbrella, boots, and or rain-gear.  When you're homeless you don't have a car to run to, a house, and generally no boots or rain-gear or umbrellas.  When you're homeless, you suffer, you get wet.  When you're wet you're colder. 

According to historic averages, this area's average low temperature is 40 degrees.  Do you know how cold 40 is when you're wet?  It's bone chilling bitter cold.  Currently we're averaging 10 degrees below normal, 10 degrees below historic norms.  Given that fact, our average lows for the month of April (if current conditions continue) would be 30.  That's 2 degrees below freezing.  Yikes.

We can't do much about the weather folks.  In fact, we can't do anything about the weather; but we can try to keep these people dry.  April's focus folks is PONCHO's.  Please consider sending along a poncho or two with your warm hats, mittens, scarves, and slippers.  I purchased 4 the other day, pictured above.  These are the light weight, easy to fold and stuff in your pocket/purse style.  Their inexpensive, and light weight to mail.  We can add these to all our donations to The Bridge Folks.

Today is April 1st, and this is not an April Fools Jokes, but an honest request.  Today, I'm kicking off our April Showers Campaign.  This is another project that non knitters, non crocheters, and non loomers can get involved in.  Please help us spread the word.  Add a badge to your blog.  Tell you co-workers, friends and family.  Tweet and Facebook it.  Let's see how many ponchos we can collect during this rainy month of April.


2011
Scarves 167
Hats 236
Mittens (gloves)59
Socks 62
Slippers 34
Ghans 13
Squares 188
Sweaters 5
Ponchos 4

All donations regardless of size and number are valued. All donations are appreciated, and all donations keep someone warm. We help, one stitch at a time. YOU truly DO make a difference. THANK YOU!

Helping Hands

Helping hands are always appreciated. If you've been a reader here on the blog previously, you no doubt are aware we have helping hands behind the scenes. Helping hands that don't necessarily knit and crochet. I thought I tell you a bit about them, as we have many new readers here that may not yet be aware. We have our good friend Rae. Rae with a couple of ladies from church prepare hot meals on Saturday mornings to distribute to those living under the bridges, living outdoors-homeless here in Ohio. Rae delivers our hand knit, crocheted, and loomed hats, scarves, and mittens (and store bought socks) at the same time she distributes her hot meals to those in need. Additionally, she works in 2 free clinics and hand delivers are hand made items there to mothers and children.

My brother Chuck, and SIL Jan often provide a storage place for me and our knitted and crocheted items of warmth. I delivery bags of wonderful goodies from you to them, who deliver them to Rae; as they belong to the same church. This saves me time and space and is greatly appreciated.  The less time I spend running items around, the more time I have to talk with you here about them, to knit and crochet myself, and to promote the need.

A while back I met a woman named Lynn at a Sausage Party. She also feeds the homeless and those in need through Holy Family. She picks up donations from me and delivers them on her weekly volunteer days to Holy Family. Again giving a hot meal and hand knit or crocheted hats, scarves, mittens, slippers to those without. Those in need of warmth both physically and emotionally. I appreciate her time and effort helping us reach those in need, while saving me much needed time.

I'm able to make deliverys to Faith Mission on a more regular basis with the help they provide above. Faith Mission provides temporary housing for Mothers and Children who've been abused and or homeless as they work to get them into permanent housing and become more stable; as well as night by night shelter for men in a separate location. I make deliveries with your thoughtful donations to both of these facilities. The squares provided by you, through Give a Square; assembled into afghans go to Nancy's Place at Faith Mission for those Mother's and their children. While Give a Square is currently dormant, I am continuing to make and deliver afghans in addition to hats, mittens, scarves, and slippers.

Thank you to all our helping hands, those with and without yarn in them.

**April's focus will be unveiled tomorrow, please check in.**

All donations regardless of size and number are valued. All donations are appreciated, and all donations keep someone warm. We help, one stitch at a time. YOU truly DO make a difference. THANK YOU!

Milestones, and Where We've Come From

WOW, as of the writing of this post (remember their scheduled ahead and in que), we're only 16 posts away from blog post 400! Wow, what a milestone from the beginning of this blog. That many blog posts represents so much to me and I hope it does to you as well. It represents the number of wonderful big hearted knitters, crocheters, and loomers out there giving of themselves to help others. That makes me feel very warm inside. Surely it does you as well.

As of the writing of this blog posts there were 144 followers of this blog. Are you one? If not, would you pop up there and add yourself (fellow bloggers).

Where we've come from
I've often posted information about how many members, how many donations etc we've had at a given point and time, which shows how we've grown. But, the other day I received an email which I think represents where we've come from in a different manner and wanted to share it's thought with you. The other day I received an apology from someone who'd asked for my address, as she planned to donate, but ended up not donating (thus the apology).  She was encouraged by what she saw here from caring people like yourselves to look in her community for a way of helping. She hails from the state of Oregon. I don't have the state of Oregon listed as a state where donations have come from (though someone might have before we started documenting that). Would have been nice to add that state, however....she has no need to apologize. She's found a need, a homeless situation in fact in her area. One she was unaware of before. She is still helping, just there and not here. Opening someone's eyes to what they can do to help someone....anywhere is in fact a signal, I believe in how far we've come. Margi if you're reading this, the very best of luck to you in your endeavors.  If you get to the point where you have a blog or webpage or something along that line, please sing.  I'd be happy to add a link here to help support your cause.  Regardless of wear homelessness exists, it hurts.  Some climates perhaps are harder then others on folks living in the elements, but many people are in need.  We all must do what we can, when we can.

There are many ways to help, certainly by knitting and crocheting, but don't forget if you're not a crafter, you CAN still help. You can blog about the cause, you can tell friends and neighbors and co-workers. You can print and post flyers (see tab across top of the blog). You can send socks (though Sock it to Me Month is about over, we collect socks ALL YEAR LONG). You can visit, read, and comment frequently here on the blog to help encourage those doing the knitting and crocheting and improve the blogs SEO. You can explore your community and lend a hand, perhaps at a local food bank or soup kitchen. Giving of yourself, your time, your talent is a very rewarding life. The men, women, and children who are homeless-cold and hungry NEED YOU.

2011
Scarves 167
Hats 236
Mittens (gloves)59
Socks 62
Slippers 34
Ghans 13
Squares 188
Sweaters 5

All donations regardless of size and number are valued. All donations are appreciated, and all donations keep someone warm. We help, one stitch at a time. YOU truly DO make a difference. THANK YOU!

Scarves Galore

Thank you Gail B from VA four your wonderful and thoughtful donation of 15 scarves and 3 hats. I'm sad to say the photo of your donation was one of those eaten by the computer. (see yesterday's post please)_. Thank you also for helping me with the location in your state of Virginia I was having trouble identifying/reading. All are appreciated. I am sorry I don't have a picture for you all to see of her donation. Looked a bit more since yesterday in hopes I'd find those missing photo's, but....no luck.

Sock it to Me Month will soon be over, and April will kick off our focus on rain. Though if you're in Ohio you probably wonder how we could possibly have more than we've already had.

2011
Scarves 152+15=167
Hats 233+3=236
Mittens (gloves)59
Socks 62
Slippers 34
Ghans 13
Squares 188
Sweaters 5

Can you help spread the word by printing a flyer or two? Please check tabs across the top of the blog and add a flyer to your church's bulletin board, your office bulletin board or other area's you deem to be appropriate.

All donations regardless of size and number are valued. All donations are appreciated, and all donations keep someone warm. We help, one stitch at a time. YOU truly DO make a difference. THANK YOU!

Where Did the picture go?

3 wonderful pairs of crocheted mittens were donated by Jodi from Pa. She's donated before and we're thrilled to have her continued support. Though I know I took a picture, it's been eaten I believe by the computer. It's possible I may at some point find it, but to date, I can't find it in any of the appropriate files. I had major computer updates the day before and am missing several photo's. I assume (though am not techy enough to know for sure), it got lost with multiple updates. When I got back in town, had multiple windows open on the computer indicating windows had updated, as did Adobe, and Java, and something else. Geesssssssssss.

I'm frustrated as I've spent a fair amount of time looking for the pictures I know I took. Even have them marked off my check list. They've already been donated or I would shoot another photo. As you know, blog posts are written ahead and scheduled in que, then I add pictures to several posts at a time. This happened once before to me, so I may have to alter my routine.

I can tell you the mittens were wonderfully made, nice and thick and warm. They were one of the patterns you crochet into the back loop only of single crochets and make the mitten flat with gathers at the wrists for a nice cuff and sew around the edge to create the full mitten.

Many thanks Jodi, I know your mittens were well received and am sorry I don't have the photo here to show everyone how nice they were. In addition, Jodi donated 6 pairs of socks for Sock it to Me Month!

**Still a few days left for Sock it to Me!**

2011
Scarves 152
Hats 233
Mittens (gloves)56+3=59
Socks 56+6=62
Slippers 34
Ghans 13
Squares 188
Sweaters 5

All donations regardless of size and number are valued. All donations are appreciated, and all donations keep someone warm. We help, one stitch at a time. YOU truly DO make a difference. THANK YOU!