Handmade Especially For You

October 5, 2012

TODAY'S TOPICS:           

AND NOW FOR THE DETAILS:

We shipped just over 1,000 comfort scarves to 50+ shelters at the end of September.  It was a hectic scene, packing all those boxes.  Luckily, we wrapped a lot of the scarves previously so all we had to do was put them in the boxes.  It was very heartwarming to see all the finished boxes stacked up awaiting pick up by FedEx. 

While one group of volunteers packed the boxes, another group continued wrapping scarves.  Thanks to these dedicated women we have the same good start for our October shipping.  Lots and lots of wrapped scarves in my “guest bedroom” awaiting shipping.  And we still have plenty to wrap.  Our next scheduled wrapping party should show that we are pretty well set for Holiday shipping, especially if scarves keep arriving at the current rate.

♥   ♥   ♥

In addition to the wrapped and unwrapped scarves at my home awaiting shipping, we have many huge boxes of “winter” scarves in storage ready for distribution in November and December.  These are scarves made with yarn too heavy for summer use in CA that we wrapped and set aside for cooler weather.  Lucky we have them.  They make us prepared for the huge shipping we will do for the Holidays.

We still need lots and lots of scarves for the Holidays, but I feel we will achieve our goal—getting comfort scarves to every shelter in S CA from San Diego to San Luis. Honestly, as much as I hoped for such a result, I thought it might be too big to achieve.  But we’ve almost made it.  No slacking off now.  We’re so close.  Please keep scarfing.   The trick will be to avoid the pressure of getting them shipped to all the shelters.  In the past two years, November and December shipping days were complete chaos.  It’s a lot easier (but not easy!) to prepare 20 boxes with 10 scarves each than to pack the same 20 boxes with 50 scarves each.  Our Holiday shipping is usually 5 times bigger than our monthly.   That means 5,000 comfort scarves!

If you have scarves you’re thinking about mailing to Handmade, please do so as soon as possible.  Give us plenty of time to process them.  As you know, we make sure every scarf has a signed gift tag and we wrap each scarf with a colorful ribbon.  We want to make sure every recipient feels she has received a PERSONAL gift, meant just for her.  This takes time so give us plenty of it.  We’d love to have your scarves before November 10, but of course, we will take them afterwards as well.  We know we have to start collecting scarves for 2013 deliveries.  Abuse doesn’t have a calendar.  It is ongoing.  So is our scarf project.

♥   ♥   ♥

Handmade’s volunteers are the greatest.  No matter what, they get the jobs done.  Ann Nye, Janet Schoenfeld, and Nancy English are our core kit makers, joined off and on by Evelyn Dow and Judith Solomon.  We meet every Tuesday, and believe me, they wind a lot of kits.  We send kits to scarfers all over CA and a few to FL, GA, TX, and NV as well.  Our wrappers also are very dedicated.   Ann Nye, Chris Fung, Chris Needham, Evelyn Dow, Kathy Allen, Nancy English, and Paula Weiner are our regulars.  Giuliana Torelli, Marilyn Hague, Mary Barton, and Therese Shafer join them as often as they can.  Handmade appreciates every participant.  Thank you all so much.

Let’s not overlook our scarfers.  They are the source from which everything else arises.  Our main group includes members of the Wednesday Evening Knitting Club, sponsored by June Grossberg, owner of Concepts in Yarn.  June has supported Handmade since its inception.  Her sponsorship has helped Handmade to become the success it is today.  The Knitting Club meets every Wednesday, for as much of 5-8 p.m. as the members want to attend.  Scarfers pick up their magic ball kits and drop off their finished scarves.  June keeps a bin holding kits ready for pick up by scarfers and another bin where scarfers can drop off their finished scarves, even if they don’t come on Wednesday evenings.

Another  local group, Emma Buechs, Hannelee Uys, Maria Denzel, Su Wooley, and Wendy Baumring, make so many comfort scarves, they don’t  use our kits; we just give them yarn.  In like manner, we ship boxes of yarn to Janet Deininger and Joanne Garlick, who return huge boxes of finished scarves to us.    Most contributors send scarves they made entirely from their own stash.   As you can see, it takes a huge group of people to make as many comfort scarves as we deliver.  Thank you all so much.

Sad to mention, Sharon McCann, one of our dearest, most long-standing and dedicated volunteers, is leaving S CA and moving to MO.

Sharon has done so much for Handmade.  We will really miss her.  In addition to making scarves, she wound all the yarn that came in hanks into usable balls.  She filled out the forms we needed to do our taxes (she was a district manager for H & R Block for many years), she shared driving and a room at Stitches West, and offered lots of good advice and friendship about a variety of issues.  In the photo, you see her (in the black top) when we participated in Macy’s Shop for a Cause.  She is recruiting a new scarfer.  Sharon plans to keep in touch by making a monthly donation.  And she will still file our taxes.   Good luck, Sharon.

♥   ♥   ♥

Since the last Newsletter, there have been a few changes at Handmade.  First and foremost, we no longer have access to the Happy Hats warehouse to use as our workshop.  We put most of our yarn into storage (along with the winter scarves) and meet for kit making at my house.  This is not a convenient arrangement, but we are getting used to it.  We continue looking for a new location for our workshop and a free place to store our yarn, but still don’t have $$$$ to pay rent, so we haven’t been successful finding a place, or we haven’t been successful yet.  We are so busy with the end of the year rush activities that we haven’t applied for grants, but that will be one of our biggest jobs starting in December and in the new year.  If any of you have experience in grant writing or fund raising, please volunteer.  Handmade needs you!

♥   ♥   ♥

Our enthusiastic kit makers go through miles of yarn every time they make kits.  They do this thanks to the generosity of yarn companies.  Donations in September were substantial and put us in good shape for making lots of scarves for the holidays.  When I visited my family in N CA for my granddaughter’s 14^th birthday, we picked up an entire car full of yarn from Susan Druding, at Crystal Palace Yarns.  Then, much to my amazement, Westminster Fibers donated an entire pallet (almost 300 pounds) of their Sheer yarn.  It comes in 5 colors.  It mixes well with other yarns and we feel lucky to have it.  Thanks you, Linda Pratt.  Knitting Fever, another long time yarn donor, just sent a big box.  We will start incorporating that yarn into our kits at our next kit making session.  Thank you, Tymon Warda.

♥   ♥   ♥

Every month, thank you letters pour in from the shelters to which we donate comfort scarves.  I usually include excerpts from a few of these letters, but this month, following the idea that one picture is worth a thousand words, I will save you three thousand words with three photos.

Luz Eva Hull, at Center for Family Solutions in El Centro CA sent these thank you cards made by recipients in her shelter.  Please notice that each woman addressed her card to the woman who signed the gift tag on the scarf she received.

A few times in the past month or so I felt pretty discouraged about the loss of our workshop and other small problems that needed attention.  However, every time I read one of the above letters, I have to adjust my perspective.  Our comfort scarves are so important to the women who receive them.  We cannot let little things like where to make the kits or store the yarn get us down. 

As much as the shelters appreciate our scarves, they also love the baby blankets that many of you have been sending.  I polled all the shelters and 20 so far report multiple babies on the way.  Check your closets and the bins under your bed.  If you have any baby blankets tucked away, please send them to Handmade.

♥   ♥   ♥

Our affiliates are still active.  Renee Hoffman, leader of our Long Beach CA group, donated 20 scarves to Interval House.  Vicki Ringer, leader of our San Fernando Valley CA group, delivers 20 scarves each month to Haven Hills every month.  If I know Vicki, she has her deliveries all ready through the beginning of 2013.  Ann Miller, coordinator of our Pueblo CO affiliate, delivered 15 comfort scarves to Family Crisis Services in Canon City. 

Barbara Kochuba, in Pittsburgh PA, continues moving ahead full steam.  She has been collecting purple comfort scarves to distribute to 11 shelters in Southwestern PA during October, which is Domestic Awareness Month.  She also is having a few growing pains.  I chuckled when I read in her Newsletter that she is trying to remove 16 bins of yarn from her living room.  I know the feeling.

We welcome a new affiliate in England.  Amanda Roberts contacted me about starting a group there.  She is well on her way.  She reported that they have started producing comfort scarves and are now at the stage of contacting directors of shelters. Amanda says:  “We have chosen the name Butterfly K to summarise what we do, butterfly to symbolise the potential for change and K to signify the knitting.”  Welcome aboard Butterfly K! 

♥   ♥   ♥

Yes, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  Domestic violence is not usually a topic of conversation, but there is a big case in N CA involving San Francisco Sheriff  Mirkarimi.  In August, he was found guilty of abusing his wife—yes, the sheriff!—in a new year’s eve altercation but still hasn’t been relieved of his job.  The supervisors won’t decide his fate until October 9!  Think about this.  A sheriff, who leads a large department that has to handle domestic violence cases all the time, is found guilty of domestic violence himself.  He is undergoing domestic violence awareness classes, but what kind of role model is he.  To me, this proves how little the public in general regards domestic violence against women.  It will take more than purple scarves to improve the public’s recognition that abuse of women is a crime. 

Here are a few domestic violence facts gathered by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. 

• One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime

• About 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year

• 85% of domestic violence victims are women; 25% to 45% are battered during pregnancy.  Domestic violence during pregnancy is the biggest cause of birth defects

• Women age 15-44 are at greatest risk

• Most cases of domestic violence are never reported to the police

• Boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners when they become adults

• The cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion each year; $4.1 billion is for medical and mental health services

• About 20% of the people who experience intimate partner violence obtain civil protection orders; 50% of these orders are violated

• There are 1,500 shelters for abused women in the US (compared to 3,800 animal shelters.  In this instance, animals receive more protection than women)

• Domestic violence occurs among people of all races, ages, socio-economic classes, religious affiliations, occupations, and educational backgrounds

Comfort scarves, even 15,000 of them, cannot combat these statistics or cure the harm done by abuse to the women and children who experience it.  But comfort scarves are a START to overcoming the effects of domestic violence.  Comfort scarves help a woman feel remembered, important, and valuable.  Even if for just a moment, receiving a comfort scarf raises a woman’s self-esteem.  The feelings a woman experiences when she receives a comfort scarf make her open to beginning the therapy and education that will help her change her life.  We who make comfort scarves have a big responsibility to keep making them, to continue helping abused women break out of the mental state that allows them to think abuse is “normal.”

To do this, we need you.  We need you to make scarves for the women, enough scarves so that we reach our 15,000 goal this year.

♥   ♥   ♥

We also need your financial support.  Contribute $10, $25, $50, or even more.   The cost for making comfort scarves is low.  All Handmade’s participants are volunteers.  We have no employees.  We pay no salaries.  All the yarn we use has been donated by yarn companies or by individuals.  We have ongoing daily expenses such as paper, toner, boxes, packing tape, etc. but SHIPPING is our biggest expense.  It takes almost $500 each month to send kits to volunteers and scarves to our shelters.  In November and December, this will be higher because we will be sending out 2,500 scarves (not our usual 1,000) each month.  When we find a space for our warehouse, we will also need $$$ to pay rent and overhead.  Double your donation by asking your company to match it.  Cynthia Newkirk, one of our supporters almost since Handmade started, works for Verizon Wireless.  When she donated, she asked Verizon to match her donation and they did.  That doubled the impact of her contribution. 

 ♥   ♥   ♥

Handmade Especially for You is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt non-profit charity, so any donation you make is tax-deductible.  We provide appropriate receipts for all donations.  100% of your donation goes toward helping abused women.

If you want to donate $$$$, which we need to pay for the huge holiday shipping bill we anticipate, you can mail a check to the above address, or contribute via PayPal.

If you want to donate scarves or yarn, please mail to:

Handmade Especially for You c/o Leslye Borden
30065 Grandpoint Lane
Rancho Palos Verdes CA 90275

Thanks for supporting Handmade Especially for You.  I appreciate, and so do all the abused women who receive our comfort scarves.

Leslye
www.handmadeespecially.org