Knitting with others

Thursday nights are my "Stormbreak nights." Stormbreak is a local girls group home for girls aged 12-18 who cannot live with their families for a variety of reasons. I began going to the home last year to teach the girls how to knit; I continue to go because my time there with the girls and the all-female staff offers me a weekly girl fix, something I need with my daughter living so far away. Last year, we crocheted an afghan and donated it to the Women's Resource Center in our own "Pay It Forward" project. This year we have decided to participate in the Knit a Square project that benefits AIDS and HIV orphans in Southern Africa. The idea is for knitters all over the world to take leftover, scrap yarn and knit or crochet it into 8" x 8" squares to be mailed to the Soweto Comfort Club where women will sew all the squares into blankets distributed to children living in poverty in sub saharan Africa.

So...today, I organized a knitting basket (photographed in the light of a spring evening!) for my Stormbreak night. I also intend to carry it to my classroom on Monday since after chatting with some of my students about knitting and crocheting, several of them indicated they too would like to participate in this project. What a good way to use up my yarn, really use it ALL up, what a good way for teenagers to help make a difference, and what a really good way to reach out to children who may really benefit from our not wasting anything.

“I believe that this could very well be looked back upon as the sin of our generation….and our children 40 or 50 years from now are going to ask, ‘what did you do while 40 million children became orphans in Africa?' ”

-Richard Stearns
President World Vision USA