Neighbourhood Grants AVAILABLE
Have you treasured your connection to fibre art over the last year of isolation living? Want to share this skill with others and strengthen your community at the same time? Join with me in the adventure to be found in introducing others to the creative power of getting hands-on with yarn-play, felting, weaving, stitching, crocheting or any other fibre art!
Locally, there are a few funding options available to anyone who would like to lead any such initiative, and it is likely similar grants are available in your community wherever you call home. Let me introduce some of the local ones that may help you seek out the options available to you.
(Also, mark your calendars for our April 10th Saturday morning Zoom presentation at this weekend’s Virtual Knit City where I will give an overview of all the Community Projects we at Baaad Anna’s help coordinate!).
Across British Columbia, there is still plenty of time to apply to the Spring 2021 Responsive Neighborhood Small Grants (Spring 2021). In Vancouver, you can apply by April 20th to get up to $500 for projects that help your community stay connected during the COVID-19 crisis. Below we give examples to two fibre arts-focused projects, a neighbourhood ‘Learn to Knit’ group or hosting a free Fibre Library on your lawn, that fall within the $500 scope and can share the love of fibre arts and strengthen your community! These are just the tip of the iceberg of possible fibre arts projects for these grants, and we welcome the exchange of any other ideas you have. We will be happy to post a page to share any such ideas, as well as information on how to prepare your grant ask, start your project, and collectively share in its success!
The great thing about this grant opportunity is that although it is run out of the Vancouver Foundation, these Neighbourhood Grants are available across a variety of communities throughout the province. Check the bottom of the https://neighbourhoodsmallgrants.ca website to see where (and on what timeline) your neighbourhood can access this funding. The deadline for this Spring session projects is April 20th and the project must be started and completed by Nov 30th but if you miss making your application for the Spring session, these grants will likely be made available once again later in the year.
There are also similar funding opportunities available from local Neighbourhood Houses or The United Way in various communities, so reach out to your local organizations to see if they can point you to similar resources in your hood.
Neighbourhood Fibre Art Idea: Learning Groups
Are you looking to bring new and creative online courses to your community? At Baaad Anna’s we have an established online fibre arts program and have specialized community courses with acclaimed instructors ready to share their talents and creativity. We believe that through info sharing, and whether you want to share your own skills, or turn to the help of an instructor, we can strengthen our greater fibre arts community by putting together a variety of open-source resources to help you get a community project off the ground.
However, if knitting is the skill you want to share and grow we can also help with that. Knitting has long brought people together from social gatherings and knit circles to generational passing down of skills from our elders. During this past year these events have had to shift to a virtual setting and we have been amazed at how strong not only these established connections remained but at how much the community has grown.
We have already worked to help others put Neighbourhood knit groups together. Within the Responsive Neighborhood Small Grants budget we can recommend three patterns and all materials needed to help you host a beginner knitting classes for anyone who has never picked up needles, or for someone who is looking for a beginner refresher. The Oats Cowl or the Wheat Scarf from Tin Can Knit’s free Simple Collection, as well at the Super Easy Ribbed hat by CJ Designs can offer participants the basics including casting on, knitting, purling, casting off, and potentially knitting in the round, as well as provide a wealth of online support materials. We even offer the option of Zoom instructors joining your Knit Group with optional instructional time, if you need. At the bottom of this post we provide budget suggestions on the costs involved in offering this as a class in your neighbourhood.
Spring is off to an exciting start! What began as an idea on our last Give Back Sunday (and via its associated Instagram post) has now evolved into a network of community sharing and endless inspiration. We are working with five groups of people to help them launch a give-and-take mini Library dedicated to the exchange of fibre art materials and tools, in five local communities. But our aim for this was to collect resources from this project that we can then share with anyone who is interested in launching their own Free Fibre Library.
We will post an update on this later this week for April’s Give Back Sunday (happening on April 11th), but if you are interested in putting a grant ask together to build one of these in your hood, we already have some resources to share:
- Someone has offered to share her community grant application for a similar project that can be used as a guideline for wording on your own request
- If you want help in the building of a free standing library box, we have been connected with a woodworker who has built others for about $300 for all labour & materials
- We have an Upcycing program where we collect and distribute underloved yarn and tools that we can help fill (and hopefully refill) these boxes upon request (as available)
- We are putting together an Open Source Resource page in our website, and on a separate Facebook page to help knowledge share
- We are working on a map of all locations of Free Fibre Libraries we help contribute to
If any of these resources can help you put together a funding grant please feel free to reach out to us at baaadannas@gmail.com to discuss.
Remember, we will weather this together, as we are stronger as a community.
A quick, simple, reversible scarf from local designers Tin Can Knits who offer fantastic instruction for a wealth of classic attractive knits, and have a free set of beginner patterns available called The Simple Collection. This is a set of patterns of a variety of garment types, with beginner projects that include multiple free hyperlinked tutorials for each new technique presented.
- Two balls of Sugar Bush Bold
- One set of 5mm/US8 needles (circular or straight)
- Darning Needle
- Wheat Pattern from Tin Can Knits
- 4 – 6 Hours of Instructional Time depending on number of participants if required.
- Materials $46.80 Per Person
- Optional Instructional Time $140-$210 Depending on on number of participants
Tin Can Knits Oats Cowl
Photos courtesy of Tin Can Knits
Learn how to make this modern and cozy cowl from local designers Tin Can Knits who offer fantastic instruction for a wealth of classic attractive knits, and have a free set of beginner patterns available called The Simple Collection. This is a set of patterns of a variety of garment types, with beginner projects that include multiple free hyperlinked tutorials for each new technique presented.
Included:
- One skein of Urth Yarns Harvest Worsted & size US 8 needles 16″ circular
- One set 5mm/US8 16″ circular needels
- Darning Needle
- Oats Pattern by Tin Can Knits
- Optional 4 – 6 Hours of Instructional Time depending on number of participants
- Materials $46.80 Per Person
- Optional instructional time $140-$210 Depending on on number of participants
Super Easy Knit Ribbed Hat
- One skein on Estelle Bulky
- One set of 10mm/US15 !6″ circular needles
- Darning Needle
- Optional 4 hours Instructional time if needed.
- Materials $35.95 Per Person
- Optional Instructional Time $140.00
