Tomorrow we kick off the official Warm Things Drive at Baaad Anna’s, but what better way to launch our annual donation drive than with a drop-off of 98 hats to the Larwill Place Temporary Modular Housing Site, just before the snow sets in!

Baaad Anna’s Warm Things Drive is our annual call-out for donations of warm things to be distributed to those in need in Vancouver’s downtown east side. We ask for any good condition pre-loved or purpose-made warm winter items that are not in use in your household such as hats, mitts, scarves or sweaters/hoodies. Over the past few years we have been collecting donation-knit items year round so we already have a head start, with this lovely hat donation.

The staff at Larwill Place were so pleased with this surprise, and we even got a shout-out…

I’m loving this tally of our donations of hand knits to the newly housed residents of Vancouver’s Modular Housing Program to date:

• 98 handmade hats for each resident of the Larwill Place units (2022)
• 52 pairs of hand-knit socks for the residents of Margaret Mitchell Place (2021)
• 98 handmade hats, cowls, scarves and shawls for each resident of the Álewem units (2021)
• 52 pairs of hand-knit socks for the residents of Nora Hendrix Place (2020)
• 98 handmade hats for each resident of the New Beginnings units (2020)
• 58 pairs of hand-knit socks for the residents of Naomi Place (2020)
• 52 handmade hats for each resident of the tə cecəw (The Beach) TMH in Little Mountain (2019)
• 52 handmade hats to the Hummingbird Place Temporary Modular Housing in the Olympic Village area of Vancouver (2019)
• 39 hand-knit cowls and shawls to the Aneki House womens-only modular housing unit (2018)
• 39 pairs of hand-knit socks for the Chartrand Place Modular Housing residents (2018)
• 52 pairs of hand-knit socks for the 52 new residents of the Kaslo Modular Housing when those units opened (2018)
• In addition to a large number of hand-knit donations to the Downtown Eastside Womens’ Centre and other recipients since 2009

Please join us in collecting hats, mitts and scarves as part of this year’s Warm Things Drive over the next month. Adult gender-neutral hats and socks in various sizes seem to be the things most often requested, but any handknots you would like to pass along we will do our best to find a loving home for!