Give Back Tuesday is always a great time to reflect on the impact we have on the community around us. Since opening in 2009, we have celebrated the holidays by launching the collection of custom-made or upcycling of handmade clothing items such as hats, socks, scarves, mitts and even sweaters that are donated throughout our community. Our Warm Things Drive has become so beloved that we now collect these items year round, and not just in the month of December! But let’s celebrate today as the launch of the 2024 Holiday Collection!

Over the years the Baaad Anna’s Warm Things Drive has collected 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.

A few years back we started tracking our many donations, and this is our current running (by not exhaustive) list:

• 70+ various items added to the donations of the UBCKnitandSew Club to distribute via their Charity Drive to the Evelyne Saller Centre in the DTES (2024)
• 120+ various items distributed to unhoused & newly housed through the Portland Housing Society (2024 & 2023)
• 160+ children’s hats to a local low-barrier childcare provider (2023 & 2021)
• 90+ various items + materials added to the donations of the HungerBites Club at David Thompson High School to distribute to the DTES Women’s Centre (2024/23/22/21)
• 180+ hats & 70+ other garments sent to the Ukraine at the start of the war (2022)
• 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 handknits you would like to pass along we will do our best to find a loving home for!