Helping Survivors of Sexual Assault
April 16th the OKC YWCA is hosting a 5 K to raise funds and awareness to help victims and prevent future sexual assaults.
There is a community fair happening at the same time and we have a booth!
If you’re available the morning of the 16th, please consider participating in this event. You can register online to walk or run, or to volunteer, or you can join me at our Threads of Compassion OKC booth.
The information about the event is online at the YWCA site.
Hope to see you there!
At our work day this past Sunday we started talking about how fun it was to work together and someone asked what the schedule is for the future.
So, I went ahead and planned the rest of the year.
Here are the 2011 Work Days.
April 3rd
May 1st
June 5th
July 10th
August 7th
September 11th
October 2nd
November 6th
December 4th
We always meet in the Potters Room at the Memorial Road church of Christ in Edmond. It’s from 2-5, and it’s totally fine to come for some or all of the time.
Most of these are the first Sunday of the month, when that fell on or very near a holiday we switched to the 2nd Sunday of the month
As the weather starts to get warmer it’s easy to wonder if we really still need scarves… the answer is yes, we do!
We give scarves all year long, whether it is 20 degrees outside or 105. The comforting function of the scarf is the same whatever the weather is.
So, let’s keep going; let’s keep knitting and crocheting; let’s keep donating to the YWCA; let’s keep comforting survivors of sexual assault.
Our “work days” continue, once a month in Edmond so that we can enjoy working together and seeing some of the other beautiful creations made by our participants.
We had a work day scheduled for Feb. 6th from 2-5. However, due to the snow the Memorial Rd. church has changed their worship time to 2:45 in the afternoon, so we’re going to cancel the work day.
Everyone is invited to the service at MRCC and welcome to stay & visit after it.
Our next work day is March 6th, we look forward to seeing you there!
I’m so thankful for the great variety of people that are helping make Threads of Compassion OKC possible!
This is a stack of 4 or 500 cards!
It was waiting on my desk when I got to work today.
I suspect it will be enough to get us through 2011.
I had mentioned to a good friend and co-worker how the expense of the cards was adding up over time.
She has a relationship with a printer here that has provided great service over the years for her work projects. She contacted them and they were able to donate the cards that we need for next year!
What a blessing to have such good friends, and such generous companies here in Edmond/OKC!
It’s amazing to look back and realize that Threads of Compassion OKC became a reality in 2010.
It went from me reading about it online in late December to contacting the OKC Rape Crisis Center, delivering 6 scarves in January to actually delivering 225 scarves by end of the year!
It’s hard to find words to share the impact this project has had on me, and on others. I’m so thankful that my husband encouraged me to go for it and that the YWCA staff was willing to give it a shot as well.
As I look back over the year, I see that 32 different people gave scarves (well, actually more than that because 1 of the 32 was a group, the Knit Wits). Many of these are people that I’ve never met – they heard about us on the news, or from friends, or other online resources. Some have been very experienced knitters/crocheters and others have just learned—including at least one who learned specifically to help with this project. So cool!
So many people have helped make this possible, and to each of them I want to say thank you! Here’s a brief list:
2010 was a great start; I’m excited to see what 2011 will bring!
This month we got a box of 20 scarves from a group.
I asked one of the ladies to tell me more about them so that I could share about it here. Below is the information she sent.
Our group is called “Knit-Wits” at Putnam City United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City. We started our group in the fall of 2007. We have approximately ten members and meet every other Thursday morning at the Church. We started knitting prayer shawls for our Church members who are hospitalized or in nursing homes or confined to their homes and in need of comfort.
Over the last three years we have made baby caps and blankets for the Infant Crisis Center. We have made hats and scarves, pot holders, hot pads, dish cloths, baby blankets and sold at our Church bazaar in the fall and contributed the money to our Daily Bread food pantry. We have donated knitted and crocheted items to Skyline, a Methodist Mission in Oklahoma City.
Our Church secretary became aware of Threads of Compassion through a television ad she had seen and mentioned it to our group and I contacted you for information. About that time, we were looking for other projects to knit and crochet.
I’m so glad that they found Threads of Compassion OKC and I look forward to future gifts from the “Knit Wits”!
Here are the 20 scarves, packaged and ready to go!
We’ve scheduled our Threads of Compassion OKC Work Days for the first half of 2011!
You can join us in the Potter’s Room at MRCC on the following Sundays from 2-5 PM. These are a fun time to work with others and learn some new skills.
2011 Work Days:
January 16
February 6
March 6
April 3
May 1
June 5
I’m looking forward to this coming year and seeing what can happen with Threads OKC. Our first year was great, and I imagine 2011 will be even better!
We’re ten months into Threads of Compassion OKC, and it seemed like a good time to stop and reflect for a moment.
We’ve received scarves from 28 different people! Most of them live in Oklahoma, but they also have been mailed in from other places.
We’ve received other gifts (yarn, hooks, needles, cash) from 14 people.
As of November 1st we have delivered 166 scarves to the YWCA!
It’s really been encouraging to see this project grow, to have others join me in reaching out to people at such a difficult time.
I look forward to seeing more people join us in creating scarves over during the next several months!
We’ve been trying out a pattern found on Lion Brand’s website lately and decided we like it!
It works up quick and looks great. The only trick is that the yarn needs to not be too thin –the ones designed for baby blankets aren’t great for this pattern. But any regular medium weight one looks good.
You can find the pattern here.