by Amy Pass
I was looking back on my notes from last year and was reminded of the little green laundry basket that held our first month of donated yarn and hats. I could actually carry everything out to my car by myself back in those days! I am astonished that we have grown from 1 little green laundry basket to bins and boxes and tote bags full of yarn and full of all the beautiful handmade items so carefully crafted by all of you. (And half a bedroom in my house devoted to Team Yarn...wonder what this next year will bring?)
This year 20 additional people joined the Team, raising our total number of contributors to over 70 in the past 2 years. It’s hard to know exactly HOW many because several of our donations have come from groups, most notably: the NE Metro 916 Intermediate School District Career & Technical Center students, who have donated 141 items to Team Yarn over the past 2 years!!
In 2014 Team Yarn donated to 9 different facilities - Our Lady of Peace Hospice Center, Ronald McDonald House in Rochester, Sandra J. Schulze Hope Lodge in Rochester, Richard M. Schulz Hope Lodge in Minneapolis, Amplatz Children’s Hospital, Minneapolis VA Medical Center, Minneapolis Children’s Hospital, and The Harbor Room at the Cambridge Medical Center. We donated items for silent auction at 2 fundraiser events and gifted hats and shawls to a number of individuals, as well. In total, 808 items passed through our hands in 2014, exactly 20 more items than last year! When we first got started, I kept worrying that things would dwindle after a while, that the momentum would fade. I need not have worried! Our two year grand total comes to 1,596 items!
I want to especially acknowledge the talent of this group. We have strength, not only in numbers, but also in skill, creativity and artistry. The hats, scarves, shawls, and blankets you have donated this year are absolutely phenomenal in quality. We have received this feedback again and again at our donation sites. Thank you for not only contributing your time and energy, but also your attention to detail, your care and commitment to gifting beautiful things to people who need a bright spot in difficult times.
We’d like to give a special shout out to Sandra Slater, who contributed 177 hats this year. She is a knitting machine! Extra thanks to her yarn-detangler extraordinaire: my dad, Brad Slater. Next in line among our top contributors is Linda Moore with a total of 96 items. (I should mention that she was slowed considerably by the making of blankets this year! If all that time had been spent in hats, there’s no telling what her numbers would be!) She is followed by Lorraine Herges, who faithfully donates at our drop site in Cambridge, MN. She donated 71 items this year. Jenni Raborn made 67 items for the Team, nearly doubling her numbers from last year! And Alexys Tellinghusen (age 13) made 37 hats! These five people single-handedly contributed more than half of this year’s total! Having said that, we want to make it clear that this team would not be what it is today without the contributions of every individual person. Single hats and single skeins of yarn add up to the numbers you’re hearing about today. With only 20 fewer items, we would not have surpassed last year’s numbers! Thank you!
To all our kiddos: Jordan, Octavia & Ariana, Maddy & Emily, Alexys, Josey & Axel, and Aurora, thank you for coming! Some of you have already contributed your own handmade items to the Team, and we think that’s AMAZING! We love your enthusiasm. We love to see you learning to knit and crochet. We love your help in tagging hats. You make us smile at every meeting, and we love you!
Finally, I want to give an extra special thanks to Tesha, my friend and Team Yarn co-founder. Without her constant encouragement, steady presence, and enthusiasm, Team Yarn would not exist. She collects information about our donation sites, isn’t afraid to ask questions when we get there, writes up blog posts, and documents our meetings in photographs - all the while whipping up her own hats, shawls & blankets to donate! THANK YOU! I could not do it without you!
SEE RELATED POSTS
24 Meetings Later
VIDEO: A note from Amy on our 2nd Anniversary
Posts
0 comments: