Our month-long annual Warm Things Drive has been a heart-warming success. In fact the generosity shown by this fibre arts community has been truly outstanding. Every year we collect custom-made or under-loved handknits, crocheted items or woven accessories to be distributed throughout the downtown east side, and this year we had enough to support multiple groups. A huge thank you to everyone who contributed all year round as well as over the month of December, as it was truly a living example of the spirit of the season!

Here’s a tribute to every donation made during this drive:

It became clear near the beginning of the drive that we had a plethora of hand made hats, so we were able to make TWO separate holiday gift donations to every resident of two of Vancouver’s recently opened Temporary Modular Housing units. TMHs have been appearing all across the city as a means to provide housing, meals and life skills to some of the 2,200 people do not have a home in Vancouver. We have been collecting and distributing handknits/crochet/weaves to every resident in various TMHs since they were launched in late 2018, including socks, scarves, more socks, and the hats, hat, and socks (below).

• 46 hats to tə cecəw (The Beach) in the Little Mountain Temporary Modular Housing in the Little Mountain (near Main St & 33rd) area of Vancouver:

• 52 hats to the Hummingbird Place Temporary Modular Housing in the Olympic Village area of Vancouver:

And we have also had the opportunity to visit the Hunger Bites knit club of David Thompson Secondary School to donate both yarn, needles and some finished handknits for their donation drive to the Downtown Eastside Womens’ Centre. Every year they work on various philanthropic ventures, and over the past few years they used their lunchtime club as a knit group to produce warm items for others.

• This selection of scarves, wraps and shawls was given to these philanthropic youth to add to their donation to the Downtown Eastside Womens’ Centre:

Also, a small selection of these knits above went directly to a refugee family of 3 (including a newborn) that arrived to Canada earlier this year from the Congo.

Lastly we also collected a variety of food donations and a $100 cash donation to the Vancouver Food Bank through our Boxing Day (donate and get 15% off sale) and my own family’s annual Christmas Caroling:

Thank you to everyone in our community that thinks of others need for warm head, feet and hearts at this chilly time of year. This is what truly makes us a community, regardless of where one calls home!

If anyone wants to try their hand at adding heels/toes to a circular tube; let any of my staff know as we have many tubes to offer towards our new Temporary Modular Housing socks goal of 58 pairs!

And please know we happily collect knit, crocheted or woven donations all year round, and host monthly Give Back Sundays on the second Sunday of every month where free yarn and treats are offered in addition to good company for an afternoon of charity crafting.

We have already started on our next Temporary Modular Housing sock donation, thanks to a very generous gift in the mail of 15 pairs of socks arriving to us from Oregan; as well as our January Give Back Sunday event which was paired with a Circular Sock Machine hands-on demo where donated sock yarns were cranked into tubes, ready for any charity knitter to add heels and toes to to complete into a pair of handknit/handcranked socks! Thank you to everyone who donated their time, skills and yarn; and keep an eye on future Give Back events as we are now building our 2020 calendar!