Homeless, Cold Children in Need THANK YOU!

If you read our blog on a regular basis you know we help many groups. We donate our hand knit and crocheted items to 2 family shelters (The YWCA, The Homeless Families Shelter), we donate our items to 2 free clinics (that care for women and children on the West Side of town), we donate our items to Holy Family (who passes out items to those in need along with a hot meal). Lynn the lady who delivers our items to Holy Family during her volunteer hours also distributes our items to several other areas in need. One such location is Broad Street Elementary School who's children have great need. Many who attend are in fact homeless, many in dire circumstance. It's very difficult to obtain a necessary education when you cold, and hungry and fearful about where you'll be sleeping the night. Though I know we can't take care of all their needs, we can make an important difference with warm hats, scarves, and mittens for these kids.

Here's a nice note from the principal I wanted to share with you all. AND add my thanks to you, for all the work you do.
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West Broad Elementary
2744 West Broad St.
Columbus, Oh 43204

CCS Mission: Each student is highly educated, prepared for leadership and service, and empowered for success as a citizen in a global community.

October 14, 2011


To Our Friends at Bridge and Beyond,

On behalf of our students and staff, I would like to extend our sincerest gratitude for your donated hats and gloves. Our students are often deprived of clothes and essentials at home and the burden of supplying materials for all of our students becomes very costly. Your generosity and kindness will bring smiles to many students. Those students that receive your materials will surely be grateful and appreciative. It eases the minds of those students that are not prepared with warm clothes to be given them during the cold winter season. I am impressed with your dedication to the children and the neighborhood.

Again, I thank you, my staff thanks you, and most of all, the students thank you.

Sincerely,


Pete Kurty, Principal

and

The staff and students of
West Broad Elementary School
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*this is a cut and paste of an email attachment I received, so the spacing is a little off, but I wanted you all to see it*

Highland Elementary School is another school in need that our friend Lynn made a delivery too. Additionally, some donations went to St. Vincent DePaul in Vinton County. Vinton County is one of 29 counties in the state that fall into the Appalachian area. These area's are the poorest in the state. I am hoping donations will continue at such a level that we can continue to spread our wings like this and go "beyond". Vinton is in the brown area when you look at the above map. Franklin, is the county where our clinics, shelters, and Bridge folks are ...that's the orange area.

Asking everyone who reads this today....Please tell at least one person about our cause. Tell them in person, tell them in an email, tell them about it through Facebook, your blog, Twitter. Thank you!

October is mitten month, let's see if we can boast those numbers, still a little bit of time left in the month; though please remember..........we collect them all year long.

November's focus will, Jack Otis Memorial Month, please keep checking in (men will be the focus).

2011 Donations:

Scarves 355
Hats 735
Mitts 142
Socks 135
Squares 515
Rain Ponchos 84
Cotton Washcloths 324
Sweaters/Poncho's 7
Slippers 90
Afghans 40 (2 sent to our friends at Pine Street)
Misc Items I've not counted misc items like all the personal care items, the neck warmers, head bands or yarn etc.

**Reminders:
Include a note with your donation
Do not tie and cut when changing yarn, leave several inches and weave in your ends
Avoid open lacy stitches, general rule of thumb if you can poke your finger throw the stitches, they aren't as warm as they could be.
Avoid white as much as possible, shows dirt too easily
Lots of info in FAQ and Before you donate

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!

Donated Squares = Rainbow Bright Afghan = Happy Little Girl

You may remember seeing these donated squares (thank you Cheryl S) and afghan start HERE. Here is another afghan that by the time you read this scheduled post has already been donated to our Welcome Home Project for The Homeless Families Foundation. Bright and cheery, I think Rainbow Bright (you know how I like to name all the ghans), should bring a smile to a little girls face.

While December is the month to donate squares, if you're mailing other items and want to include them with your hats, scarves etc. to save postage, please feel free to do so.

We have a few more days in October for our Mitten Focus, and November will be The Jack Otis Memorial Month, with a focus on Men. Please keep checking in.

How you can help-- even when your knitting and or crochet time is tight
Visit the blog, read, spend time, and post comments. Remember you do not need to be a blogger to leave comments. Simply type your comment, click the drop down box under the comment area that says name and url, leave the space for url empty. Please use this option and not anonymous. Anonymous comments often end up in the spam folder. Visiting, reading, spending time, and commenting help the blogs placement. Helping the blogs placement in search engines helps us be easier to find, being easier to find gets us more helping hands. More helping hands=more people in need we can help. Please share our blog link with your friends, family, and co-workers...even if they aren't bloggers or knitters or crocheters.

2011 Donations:

Scarves 355
Hats 735
Mitts 142
Socks 135
Squares 515
Rain Ponchos 84
Cotton Washcloths 324
Sweaters/Poncho's 7
Slippers 90
Afghans 39+1=40 (2 sent to our friends at Pine Street)
Misc Items I've not counted misc items like all the personal care items, the neck warmers, head bands or yarn etc.

Please read how you can help if you've not read it recently, also check out FAQ, thank you!

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!

Slippers, and Socks, and Scarves Oh My !

Wowzer, another great donation from the hook of Annemarie in New York. 4 wonderful, soft, and large scarves, 2 hats, 3 pairs of slippers, and 12 pairs of socks. Annemarie...you rock!

Thank you, thank you, for your thoughtful donation. Please keep up the good work. By the way, these slippers are the first I've seen like this (I think from memory), what pattern did you use?

Mitten monthly is fast approaching an end, if you're busy knitting and crocheting mittens you still have time.

*Remember to include a note with your donation with your name, address (state), email ady, blog url, facebook profile, RAV profile etc; so I can let you know your donation arrived, get things properly documented. Please review the 3 lists here on the blog. Is a state listed by your name? Still have lots without....please let us know by leaving a comment so we can get states added to the map. You do not need to be a blogger to leave a comment, click name and url and leave url blank. Please do not use anonymous. To aid with unidentified donations a section has been added to the right side bar*

2011 Donations:

Scarves 351+4=355
Hats 733+2=735
Mitts 142
Socks 124+12=135
Squares 515
Rain Ponchos 84
Cotton Washcloths 324
Sweaters/Poncho's 7
Slippers 87+3=90
Afghans 39 (2 sent to our friends at Pine Street)
Misc Items I've not counted misc items like all the personal care items, the neck warmers, head bands or yarn etc.

**We've added 2 family shelters to our mission-- the list of people we help. Making the list as follows:
Bridge Folks (primarily Men) who live outdoors
Nancy Place through Faith Mission (all women), some of whom have been abused as well as homeless
Faith Mission, Men and Women (mostly Men)
2 Free Clinics, Women and children NO Babies
Holy Family (who pass out warm items along with a hot meal)
The Homeless Families Foundation, Men, Women, and Children....families(temporary housing for 47 families)
The YWCA Family Shelter, Men, Women, and Children....families(temporary housing for 100 families)**
As the list of those in need grows, I'm hopeful that pulling together we can grow our donations to meet the need. I'm hopeful we can spread the word, find more helping hands, and knit and crochet enough. Please help, and know it does matter!!

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!

Donating to Family Shelters in Need

Thank you Jeannette J for this thoughtful donation of 3 crocheted scarves, 3 fleece throws, 1 pair of slippers, 2 crocheted hats, and sock yarn (4). These throws went to our Welcome Home project for The Homeless Families Foundation. The grey and white perfect for a family homewarming gift. I marked the other 2 for a young boy which is great cause we had a couple of afghans suitable for little girls.

Folks be sure and click to enlarge the picture so you can see the nice detail on the brown hat upper right that matches the scarf. Very nice!

About 1 week left of October Mitten Month.

Next up November, Jack Otis Memorial Month (a focus on men, a personal story, putting a face on homelessness).


2011 Donations:

Scarves 348+3=351
Hats 731+2=733
Mitts 142
Socks 124
Squares 515
Rain Ponchos 84
Cotton Washcloths 324
Sweaters/Poncho's 7
Slippers 86+1=87
Afghans 36+3=39 (2 sent to our friends at Pine Street)
Misc Items I've not counted misc items like all the personal care items, the neck warmers, head bands or yarn.

**Several days I mentioned another addition to our mission, supply warm knitted/crocheted/loomed items for homeless families through a 2nd Family Shelter, The YWCA Family Shelter. They give temporary housing to 100 families. Items needed for Men, Women, and Children. Having recently added not 1 but 2 family shelters to the list of the many we aid, I'm hopeful for increased participation. Can we find more helping hands? Do you know someone who could help? Help us spread the word.**


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!

Soft, Stylish Scarves Donated

5 Soft, Stylish Scarves crocheted and donated by Jenn S in Ohio. Awesome. Notice the blue on the far left (remember all pictures can be clicked to enlarge), it's made from granny squares! Very nice, very creative Jenn. Thanks so much for your ongoing support and your thoughtful donation. Very much appreciated.

Folks, I'm pleased to say donations have come in steady enough I feel like we can, once again expand our mission to be able to help more people. The YWCA has a family shelter, run similar to The Homeless Families Foundation. Families are given shelter and essentials for a period of time and with help move from temporary housing (the shelter) to permanent housing. Our friend Rae will be making deliveries to them. This family shelter provides temporary housing for up to 100 families. It was only a short while ago I expanded our mission to include The Homeless Families Foundation with a large donation from our summer stock pile, and am hopeful we'll be able to continue to grow to provide for this 2nd family shelter as well.

Help us grow, tell your friends, your family and your co-workers of the need. See someone knitting or crocheting, ask them if they could help. If you have a blog, please include our badge, and or blog post with a link here. Facebook and tweeting are also very helpful. Thanks for all you do, let's keep up the good work helping these families get back on their feet and avoid being homeless.

Thank you!

2011 Donations:

Scarves 343+5=348
Hats 731
Mitts 142
Socks 124
Squares 515
Rain Ponchos 84
Cotton Washcloths 324
Sweaters/Poncho's 7
Slippers 86
Afghans 36 (2 sent to our friends at Pine Street)
Misc Items I've not counted misc items like all the personal care items, the neck warmers, head bands or yarn.


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!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

5 Cotton washcloths (crocheted), 22 pairs of slippers (crocheted), all different sizes and several sexy styles! Cheryl S doubled her slippers. She made what would be 2 pairs, put them together (one inside the other), did several rows of crochet around the ankle part which made them nice and thick and warm. Others she lined with felt by sewing in a lining...very cool ideas here Cheryl. Love how they turned out. Please to enlarge so you can see the various styles, the cut little brown teddy bear ones, and see how she made the double slippers a different color inside so they can be reversible.
This is a nice thick ghan that some child/teen will love. It's suitable for a girl or a boy and has been donated to The Homeless Families Foundation for our Welcome Home Program. This is also crocheted.
Who doesn't love the traditional Log Cabin Quilt Design! Awesome. This ghan was also donated for our Welcome Home program and will be wonderful for any family as a true Welcome Home Gift.

In addition to this lovely items, Cheryl also donated 2 pair of mittens, 14 hats, 4 ponchos, and personal care items. On the day these photographs were taken, something went berserk with my camera and or when they were loaded to the computer, as the picture for those items is gone. This happened also to 2nd picture taken of Carol S's donation. I really am bugged and have no clue what went wrong. I've only had that happen a couple of times over the last couple of years. Weird and irritating. I also note the items and the amount donated so use that when calculating our numbers. Additionally, she included 4 bandana's and 1 black long john shirt.

Many thanks Cheryl for your thoughtful donation, keep up the good working. Work is continuing on Snow Cone, the ghan being made from some of the squares Cheryl donated. Scroll back a few days to see it.

2011 Donations:

Scarves 343
Hats 717+14=731
Mitts 140+2=142
Socks 124
Squares 515
Rain Ponchos 80+4=84
Cotton Washcloths 318+6=324
Sweaters/Poncho's 7
Slippers 86
Afghans 34+2=36 (2 sent to our friends at Pine Street)
Misc Items I've not counted misc items like all the personal care items, the neck warmers, head bands or yarn.

TIP: Think warm, sturdy and durable for your donations please. Please avoid special care fibers.

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!