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Thank You Letters from our Recipients


We get so many Thank You letters from our recipients, we would like to share some of them with you.


 
A thank you card from DV Solutions for Santa Maria after our January shipment - the first in the 2022 New Year.

Maria, North County Lead Advocate, wrote, Our shelter clients wrote a little thank you note 💜💜

 

One of the many heartful thank-you cards we received after our September 2021 shipment of scarves.


 

Some April 2021 Mom's Day Thank You notes ...


 
Document
Women Shelter of Long Beach Thank You Letter
 
 

December 2020, Handmade shipped Tri-Valley 400 comfort scarves and 420 beanies.  Tri-Valley volunteer coordinator, Shadab ILkal, emailed Leslye with a Thank You, saying:

Hey Leslye! Hope all is well. I just wanted to thank you and your wonderful  team of knitters for all the scarves and beanies, they were very well received and we were able to give out all of them.

Below is what they posted to their Facebook page.


 
 

Michele Nadeau, our contact at 1736 Family Crisis Center, posted this on 1736’s Facebook page after our 2020 Mother's Day shipment.  


 
 

May 6, 2020

Hi Leslye,

I want to thank you and Handmade Especially for You once again for your wonderful, generous donation of beautiful scarves.  Our staff became so excited that the number of items included in our gift bags grew.

We let our clients know that we had something for them and they have been dropping by all day today and will continue for the next two days, following social distancing protocol of course.  Nina and Maricela are making up beautiful flower arrangements each day in small bowls that were recently donated to WSLB.  We paired your scarves with masks, jewelry, make-up, socks, and miscellaneous other items and put everything together with a beautiful poem written by our own Alexis.  We also took this time to ask if the clients had any needs that we could help them with and we were able to provide canned food, diapers, formula, clothing, shampoo, personal items, etc.  We will be providing the clients currently residing in our Supportive Housing Facility, Cherese’s Safe Home, similar special packages.  A TEAM effort.  A few photos are attached.

Once again, please give our sincere thanks to your entire group!!

Mary Ellen  ♥️

-------------------

Mary Ellen Mitchell

Executive Director

WomenShelter of Long Beach


 
 

Here's a very touching and personal handwritten letter we received from Shirley Criag of the Downtown Women's Center.  To make it easier to read, we typed it up for you.  Please enjoy Shirley's kind words to all our volunteers.


 
 
 

Most of our Thank You letters come from shelters, but this Thank You from one of our knitters shows you why we do what we do.  Jane knits and contributes in honor of her 74 year old sister who has lived 40+ years in an abusive relationship - as she says, "a tragedy I can hardly bear."


 

June 2020 - we received another Thank You from Brenda Bishop after our 2020 Mother's Day shipment.

Nov 2019 - Here's a Thank You we received from Brenda Bishop, Exec Director of Humboldt Domestic Violence Services in Humboldt after our final shipment of 2019.


 

Since our huge Mother’s Day shipping at the end of April [2019], we have been receiving many emails, letters, and thank you notes with the most heart-warming comments.  

Daniela Luna, Senior Childcare Specialist, at AVDVC (Antelope Valley Domestic Violence Center), shared this beautiful note:   

My name is Daniela and I am reaching out to you from AVDVC to thank you for the absolutely beautiful scarves. We are saving the majority to hand out for Mother's Day but did hand out a few to some participants that were having a hard day and needed a pick me up. One of our youngest participants is 7 years old. She chose the purple scarf because she said it was beautiful and that she had learned in school that blue and red make purple. Our other participants wanted to thank you for making such beautiful color combinations. Both young ladies stated that they found the exact colors they love and can't wait to wear their new scarves that will be perfect accessories for the Spring and a nice addition in the Winter. We appreciate all you do, included you will find some photos we would like to share with you. Faces aren't shown for confidentiality purposes. Thanks again for thinking of us.  

Kind regards,   Daniela Luna  

Here’s the photo of the child mentioned above with her “purple” scarf.


 

FROM Union Rescue Mission (12/2018):  We are very grateful for the regular donation of scarves to Union Rescue Mission. Those scarves are much appreciated!The last shipment of scarves that you sent, have also blessed our guests here (ladies at the gateway program and the family floor). It means a lot to know how they are loved and cared by the ladies of ‘handmade especially for you’ – it touched their heart to read the encouragement labels that were on some of the scarves. The holiday season is one of the toughest time for our guests to go through.These scarves represent comfort in the midst of this difficult time.So, thank you very much for coordinating the ladies to help us in this way!

With Gratitude,Rebeka Moeljono, GIK Representative Union Rescue Mission


2018 Christmas Card from Union Mission
 

On Monday, Nov 19th, 2018 before Thanksgiving, Handmade shipped 240 scarves to the Camp Fire evacuees in Northern CA.

On Sunday, Nov 25th, after Thanksgiving, one of the participants organizing the volunteers, sent this response:

Hi
I would like to thank you for your donation of scarves to the campfire evacuees. I was working In the warehouse organizing volunteers who were sorting donations when they came in. They were beautiful. The volunteers came in and told Me they had a special donation and wanted to make sure they were taken care of specially. We decided to tuck each one into a sleeping bag knowing that these were going to the most needy of our evacuees at the time. Your donation made a big impression on our volunteers and I’m sure they will be much appreciated.

Janine Kincaide


 

After Handmade's September 2018 shipment, we received these lovely Thank You cards from WomenShelter of Long Beach. The card at right is from the shelter's staff and the two cards below are from the recipients of our scarves.


 
 

On June 10, 2018, Handmade sent 221 baby items to 13 shelters.  Almost immediately we received the letter below thanking us for our generous donation and telling us how important the baby items we sent are to the women at the Anne Douglas Center.  The Center is in Downtown Los Angeles.  It services homeless women.  We have previously sent them scarves as well, which they also appreciate.  Lauren mentions a first box of baby items.  We sent it in February.  The Anne Douglas Center is part of the Los Angeles Mission. 

Hello Leslye,

This is Lauren Reed from the Anne Douglas Center, and I would love to thank you all for the awesome knitted baby items. Let me give you a little background of what my department does, we help all the homeless women on skid row with clean clothing and showers along with a hygiene kit and that’s done 4 days out of the week. We also have a Mommy and Me program that is every Saturday which helps mothers from mission and shelters with clean baby and children clothing from the donations that we receive. We did receive the first batch of knitted items and the mothers were so thankful to know that people would take time out to knit baby items and donate them instead of selling them. I have received your box of knitted items once again, and will issue them out to our mothers next Saturday. Since the missions and shelters rotate families, we find ourselves having new mothers participating in the program that will be given the same opportunity to receive the knitted baby items as did the mothers before them.

Please feel free to share my email along with a great big HUG from the mothers who have received your items. The goal here at the Anne Douglas Center is to help hurting people by showing kindness and compassion. Your baby items are helping us to do just that and again we thank you all.  We are so grateful for all the hard work that is put into making these lovely baby items, and we will continue to share them as you send them.

Thank you once again for thinking of the Anne Douglas Center.

Lauren Reed

Operations Supervisor


 
Beautiful laminated thank-you placard from the WomenShelter of Long Beach
 

YWCA Glendale (January 26, 2018)


Comfort Scarves donated by Handmade Especially For You ! This amazing organization donates scarves often to our clients. This is the before photo- it won't be long until each and every scarf is taken. https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/ff3/1.5/16/2764.png
<3


 

Domestic Violence Solutions for Santa Barbara County (February 1, 2018)


Look at all those gorgeous colors! Thank you 🙏💖 Leslye Borden and Handmade Especially For You for your thoughtful handmade scarves donation! Each scarf is made with love and lets our clients know that they are special and cared for. Leslye has been a longtime DVS donor and we are so appreciative!


 

Here's a photo and email we received from Lisa Klein, Founder & Executve Director of LovedTwice.org after we shipped baby hats to them in October 2017.

Hi Leslye,

We just posted a photo of the cutest baby hats to our Facebook page. Thank you for your generosity of heart and time.

Lisa


 
La Casa de Las Madres, San Francisco (Aug 2017).

Good morning Leslye, 

Thank you so so much for the baby blankets and accessories!!!! They are already in shelter and one of our expecting moms picked out the matching light green snuggie and cap for her baby boy. She is due next month :)

We shared your generosity on our social media pages, post attached - We especially loved the written notes, so special and heartfelt. 

Please tell your team we are grateful from the bottom of our hearts. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kind regards,

Marisol 


 
Women Shelter of Long Beach (Feb 2017).

 

Dec 26, 2016.  Share A Meal would like to thank all the wonderful people at Handmade Especially for You for all the amazing handmade items that were donated, because of all of you we were able to handout 100+ stylish beanies, scarves, hand warmers & bags.

Please check out their page and all the wonderful things this organization does and the thank you video they created for us at Handmade.

https://www.facebook.com/ShareAMeal/videos/1029401673871832/



 

Read Leslye's Nov 13, 2016 blog post.  

Here's the photo we received from My City Youth Center of a baby snuggled in one of our donated baby bags with a matching hat that was knitted by one of our volunteer's.


 

Sometimes we receive baby items and mail them to the shelters (on our list) who are in need of them.

Here's an email we received from one of the new Shelters we added to our list in 2016:

Dear Ms. Borden and the Handmade Especially for you Crew;

I was working late – I’m always working late, when your generous gift, eight baby items, arrived. What a wonderful way to end my work day.

On behalf of the clients of Humboldt Domestic Violence Services (HDVS), I wanted to personally thank you for your kindness and generosity to survivors and their children. Just yesterday a woman was looking through some of the beautiful handmade scarfs and hats you sent – she was so excited to be able to pick out a color just right for her and know that it was made with her in mind . . . a “new” crafted item is so important to woman, especially those who come to HDVS with nothing more than the clothes they are wearing. She was thrilled when I told her that her gift was made by other women who care and understand why she was here. She told me it was the best gift she had received in quite some time and she would cherish it always.

Right now we have several babies at our shelter so the baby items will be distributed and well used. Your willingness to create these wonderful items truly makes a differences in the lives of survivors and their children. Your gift helps to give survivors back their voices by making them feel valued. Thank you for being role models in your community and supporting positive awareness about survivors of domestic and intimate partner violence.

Respectfully yours,

Brenda Bishop 

Executive Director

Humboldt Domestic Violence Services


Here are snippets from lots (but not all) of the ones we received in 2015.  We're also including a few in their entirety. 

You'll notice since each one of our scarves are signed, sometimes the recipient writes a personal Thank You note to the Handmade volunteer.  The photo on the right is an example of this.   

  


 

Wouldn’t you like to make a difference too?  You can!  

Check out our volunteer opportunities.


In alphabetical order by shelter ....

Carol Adelkoff, CEO and Executive Director of 1736, writes:  “We are so grateful for your continued support and the impact that you make on the lives of the families, youth, and veterans we serve.”

Robin Sinclair, Executive Director of Casa Youth Shelter, tells us:  “We are grateful that your continuing kindness to Casa Youth Shelter enables us to provide shelter and counseling to runaway, throwaway and abandoned youth. . . . We could not do what we do without generous supporters like you.”

Gina Vargas, Executive Director of Center for Family Solutions, explains:  (We) “would like to thank you and your team for your continued donation of scarves. . . . They make great fits to new clients. . . .and bring comfort  to our clients who reside in our emergency shelters. . . .You and your group seem to really care about making a difference for those we serve.”

Marsha Marcoe, Associate Executive Director of DVS of Santa Barbara County, tells us:  “Your gift of comfort scarves represents the promise of a home life free of violence. . . Your support. . . . enables families . . . to live without the threat of violence from an abusive relationship.”

Linda Davies, Executive Director of DVC of Santa Clarita Valley, writes:  “The 25 scarves are always a wonderful gift for the women at our Center.  They look forward to receiving them and have such a good time choosing the perfect scarf.”

Helen Adams, Executive Director of DOVES, thanks us for our “donation of beautiful scarves hand-made specifically for our shelter clients.  We are always grateful for your support. . . .Our goal is to end family violence with this generation.”

Sylvia Rosenberger, Chief Executive Officer of the Downtown (LA) Women’s Center, writes: “We are grateful for your generosity!  With the support of friends like you, The Center is able to provide necessary services and a safe place for homeless and low-income women on Skid Row.”

Kitty Glass, Community Outreach Coordinator of Family Violence Project, says:  I wish to thank you and your crew for the amazing donation we received. . . . The women will take your gifts with them when the leave the shelter and will think of you each time they wrap the scarves are their necks.”

Family Assistance Program in Victorville sent a hand written note:  “The scarves are so beautiful and have gone to many clients who are victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and sexually trafficked.  They love them.  Please continue to do this wonderful work!”

Rebecca Patrick at Fred Jordan Missions hand wrote a note:  “The women who receive these scarves love them!  You have no idea on this side of eternity the impact you are having.”

Patty Cornejo, Volunteer Coordinator at the YWCA of Glendale, sent an email with comments from the domestic violence victims who receive our scarves:  “Tell them we feel special.”  “We feel loved.”  “Makes me feel beautiful.”  “Feels good around my neck.”  “Bless their heart.”

Sister Anne Kelley, (now-ex) Executive Director of the Good Shepherd Shelter, writes:  “We so appreciate your support.  Know that your kindness and generosity is GREATLY appreciated.”

Emily Jones, one of the counselors at Haven Hills in Canoga Park (see photo of card above), explains:  “Overwhelmingly, the women who receive your scarves are touched.  They appreciate the time and energy that goes into each scarf, and are moved that someone they’ve never even met would take so much time on their behalf. . . . As a counselor, I get to see the impact the scarves have—self-esteem and joy of the women who receive them, but also they provide validation and support to victims of abuse who often feel their experiences are invisible or ignored.”

Teresa Trinidad, Program Manager at Haven House, tells us:  “As a non-profit organization serving women and children abused by an alcoholic family member, we depend on. . . donations such as yours. . . to offer refuge and counseling to assist these women and children on their way towards a life free of violence.”

Catherine Kort, Fund Development Director at Interface Children & Family Services in Camarillo, tells us:  “Thank you for the caring gift . . . We appreciate the time, thoughtfulness and love that have gone into making each scarf.”

Ben Schirmer, (now-ex) Executive Director of Rainbow Services, reports: “Your generous donation. . . will help individuals and families recovering from lives of trauma. . . . Community support brings a sense of belonging and aids their healing.”

Jennifer Adams, Executive Director of RISE (San Luis Obispo), writes: “Donations (like yours) allow us to care for victims of sexual assault and intimate partner violence and their families.”

Patricia Butler, Director of Sojourn Services for Battered Women and their Children, tells us:  “We were delighted to receive this huge boxful of gorgeous knitted scarves.  The ‘HEFY’ members really do the most beautiful work, and we are honored to present these to women and girls in our shelters.”

Angelina Coe, Executive Director at Shelter from the Storm in Palm Desert, tells us:  “Thank you for your generous donation. . . . Your contribution will assist us with providing greatly needed services to the women and children fleeing domestic violence. . . I wanted personally to thank you.  Words cannot articulate how wonderful it was to receive these items.”

Linda Rogers, Executive Director of Valley Restart (Hemet), says:  “I would like to thank all of you who took your time in hand making scarves for our lady residents and homeless ladies who come through here at dinner time. . . . You are helping us provide support for our ‘Hand up and not a hand out program.’”

Finally, Tatiana Dorman, Volunteer and Community Relations Coordinator at WomenShelter of Long Beach, explains:  “We appreciate your very generous donation of beautiful handmade scarves.  Your thoughtfulness brings so much happiness to our clients and their families. . . . Your kindness brings smiles, tears of joy, and most important, hope. . . It reminds them that even though the road ahead might be long, they made the right choice.”



 Handmade Especially For You
is a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Corporation
(EIN: 26-3529292)
30065 Grandpoint Lane, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA  90275 ♥ (310) 547-3673 /
handmade.leslye@gmail.com