Socks for Soldiers

I joined Socks for Soldiers just before Christmas Day and started right away. My first pair of regulation olive drab socks is almost done. I plan to make at least a pair a month, along with two beanies a month (from the leftover yarns).

Updates and photos to follow.

We need 3,000 more comfort scarves to make our 2011 goal

OCTOBER NEWSLETTEROctober 30, 2011
Today’s topics:

 We delivered 1,000 comfort scarves this month

 We have almost 2,500 comfort scarves wrapped and ready for Holiday delivery

 Making another 2,500 + scarves by Christmas will be a lot of work by all of us. We can do it

 Handmade’s dedicated volunteers are the greatest

 The generous contributions from yarn companies and individuals continue

 Shelters for abused women APPRECIATE receiving our comfort scarves

 Affiliates throughout the county are donating many scarves in their own areas

 October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

 Handmade needs cash donations

And now for the details:

In addition to our October delivery of 1,000 comfort scarves, we have at least another 2,000 scarves wrapped and ready for shipping in November. We plan to distribute them before Thanksgiving because every room in my house is filled with scarves and my entire family is coming for the holiday. They will need a place to sleep! Joking aside, I am very proud of all of us who are working so hard to achieve our goal of delivering 15,000 comfort scarves in 2011. Honestly, as much as I hoped for such a result, I thought it might be too big to achieve. But we’ve almost made it. No slacking off now. We’re so close. Please keep scarfing. By the way, adding our October delivery of 1,000 to our YTD, we have now delivered 10,000 comfort scarves, the same as what we donated in all of 2010.

We had so many scarves to prepare, we held two wrapping parties in October. They were lots of fun. We went through a lot of ribbon and the enormous piles of brightly wrapped scarves looked very festive. I am sure they will have a strong, positive impact. Anita Stevens, Ann Nye, Barbara Klein, Chris Needham, Cindy Blausey, Evelyn Dow, Kathy Allen, Marie Cortez, Mary Barton, Nancy English, Sharon McCann, and Yumi Wu rolled and tied scarves at one or both of the parties until there were no more to roll. It was a huge job. Many thanks to you all.

Kit making has become a more streamlined due to more participants. Barbara Klein and Mary Gravlin made them at first. Once we moved to our workshop (thanks to Sheri Schrier, founder of Happy Hats), Linda Friege, Marie Cortez, Sharon McCann, and Yumi Wu joined them. Now, as word spreads about how much fun kit making is, Ann Nye and Nancy English participate as well. They’re making lots of kits, maybe almost enough to last through the end of the year. They have done a wonderful job. The scarves we knit from the kits they make are very beautiful.

Most of the participants in these two groups are members of our Wednesday Evening Knitting Club, sponsored by June Grossberg, owner of Concepts in Yarn. June has supported Handmade since its inception. Her sponsorship has helped Handmade to become the success it is today. The Knitting Club meets every Wednesday, for as much of 5-8 p.m. as the members want to attend. The group is very welcoming. June prominently displays a bin for kits that need to be knitted and another bin for finished scarves. If you’re in the neighborhood, be sure to stop by. Her shop is a gold mine for really great yarn.

Our enthusiastic group of kit makers goes through miles of yarn every time they make kits. They make them as a group at least once a week, sometimes twice, and sometimes working at home as well. They couldn’t make so many kits without the generosity of yarn companies. Donations in September were substantial and put us in good shape for making lots of scarves for the holidays. I thought we wouldn’t receive any donations in October, but events proved me wrong. Susan Druding, Crystal Palace Yarns, sent a big box to the workshop (our first to arrive there!). Then much to my surprise, amazement, and delight, Becky Moss, Skacel Collection, sent 21 boxes (2,850 balls of yarn) of their Luana yarn. It is so soft and comes in such beautiful colors that it is perfect for making comfort scarves. An added benefit: the boxes the yarn arrived in are an excellent size for shipping our holiday scarves. Thank you, Susan and Becky. I think we’ve filled the workshop now, as well as my house.

Westminster Fibers also sent a box of yarn. Thank you Jessica! Again, much to my amazement, Nandini Rajagopalan, a member of the Handmade group on Ravelry, saw my request for fun fur. She found a good deal on it and donated 300 balls, 150 red and 150 blue. Incredible! Barbara says we’ll be making a lot of patriotic scarves in 2012. We appreciate.

Every month, thank you letters pour in from the shelters to which we donate comfort scarves. We receive too many to mention them all, but here is a typical example. Luciann Maulhardt, Executive Director of Casa Youth Shelter in Los Alamitos CA, wrote: “Thanks for all you do for Casa’s Kids… . Casa provides 235 or more kids with 2,500 days and nights of safe off the streets shelter in a family-like setting… On behalf of … OUR KIDS, we are sending you a great big “THANK YOU… We just couldn’t do what we do without your wonderful help.”

Ann Nye and I recently visited the Downtown Women’s Center in Los Angeles. Allison Bamberg, Volunteer Associate, showed us around. We were very impressed by the new facility, which provides permanent housing to 71 women, as well as 200 + meals and 77 showers to other women who drop in to their facility on a daily basis. The building was bright and clean. Computers were available for the women to use for job hunting and resume writing. Allison told us the Center plans to give 275 rolling backpacks to its women for Christmas and hopes to have one of our scarves in each backpack. Of course, we will supply the scarves!

New groups and people are contributing scarves to Handmade. Kathy Allen is a volunteer reading teacher at the Presentation Learning Center in Los Angeles. She learned that the attendees knit items for charity so she asked for 25 kits to take there. Sister Jane Bonar, leader of the Center, is very happy with our kits and we are happy with the beautiful job her group does making them into comfort scarves. You can see a photo of them with some of their finished scarves on our website.

Word of our comfort scarf project continues to spread. Erika Collins, from Sydney Australia, found us on Facebook and immediately sent 3 scarves. Christine Werth, Human Resources Rep of the Hays KS branch of N.E.W. Corp., requested kits for their company-wide volunteer week. Her group finished the kits in a week’s time and she returned the scarves to me the next week. That was fast! She says she will ask for more kits next year because making comfort scarves was so popular this year.

Renee Hoffman, leader of our Long Beach CA group, donated 20 scarves to Interval House. Vicki Ringer, leader of our San Fernando Valley CA group, delivered scarves to Haven Hills. Susan Van Winkle, organizer of our North County, San Diego CA affiliate, reports they donated 66 scarves to Rachel’s Women’s Center.

Dr. Laura Guertin, founder of the Delaware County PA affiliate, told me her group delivered 100 scarves to the Domestic Violence Center of Chester County PA. She says that brings her YTD to 300 and that she has more new knitters and crocheters and hopes to see a lot more scarves coming in.

Barbara Kochuba, in Pittsburgh PA, continues moving ahead full steam. She now has a website for Comfort Scarves, her group, and continues to distribute at least 80 scarves each month to shelters in Southwestern PA.

I hope you remember that last month I met Bonnie Jacobs, who comes from NJ, in Los Angeles where she was attending the dedication of a stained glass window she made for the Hollywood United Methodist Church. She showed a photo of it to my husband and me when we were having brunch. I loved the theme of the window (It takes a village) and her workmanship impressed me. When I excused myself to go to the ladies’ room, my husband conspired with Bonnie. He sent her a photo of his hand making the sign language sign for “I love you” and she made a small stained glass picture of that. She shipped it to arrive just in time for my birthday. I was thrilled. We hung it in a window where the morning sun comes in. It is really beautiful! You can see a photo of it on our website.

Finally, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Domestic violence is not usually a topic of conversation, but I have seen articles about it, heard news reports on radio and TV, this month more than any other time. First of all, there was the incident in Topeka KS where the City Council voted to de-criminalize domestic violence because they could not afford to enforce the law (they experienced a 10% cut to their budget). They even released from jail 18 suspected abusers awaiting trial. Reportage went on for several days until the Shawnee County DA was forced, by public outcry, to reverse his decision to pass on such prosecutions from his office to the City’s. The idea that the DA and the City Council both treated prosecution of domestic violence offenses as something that could be played with in a political fight goes to illustrate just how little political clout abused women have. Was domestic violence “legal” in Topeka? What happened to the women when the 18 abusers were set free?

Here are a few domestic violence facts gathered by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime

About 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year

85% of domestic violence victims are women; 25% to 45% are battered during pregnancy

Women age 15-44 are at greatest risk

Most cases of domestic violence are never reported to the police

Boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners when they become adults

The cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion each year; $4.1 billion is for medical and mental health services

About 20% of the people who experience intimate partner violence obtain civil protection orders; 50% of these orders are violated

There are 1,500 shelters for abused women in the US; there are 3,800 shelters for animals

Domestic violence occurs among people of all races, ages, socio-economic classes, religious affiliations, occupations, and educational backgrounds

In 2010, the LAPD received 48,042 domestic violence-related calls and reported 20,467 domestic violence-related crimes

Comfort scarves, even 15,000 of them, cannot combat these statistics or cure the harm done by abuse to the women and children who experience it. But comfort scarves are a START to overcoming the effects of domestic violence. Comfort scarves help a woman feel remembered, important, and valuable. Even if for just a moment, receiving a comfort scarf raises a woman’s self-esteem. The feelings a woman experiences when she receives a comfort scarf make her open to beginning the therapy and education that will help her change her life.

We who make comfort scarves have a big responsibility to keep making them, to continue helping abused women break out of the mental state that allows them to think abuse is “normal.”

To do this, we need you. We need you to make scarves for the women, enough scarves so that we reach our 15,000 goal this year.

We also need your financial support. Contribute $10, $25, $50, or even more. The cost for making comfort scarves is low. All Handmade’s participants are volunteers. We have no employees. We pay no salaries. All the yarn we use has been donated by yarn companies or by individuals. We have ongoing daily expenses such as paper, toner, boxes, packing tape, etc. but SHIPPING is our biggest expense. It takes almost $500 each month to send kits to volunteers and scarves to our shelters. In November and December, this will be higher because we will be sending out 2,500 scarves (not our usual 1,000) each month.

Double your donation by asking your company to match it. Cynthia Newkirk, one of our supporters almost since Handmade started, works for Verizon Wireless. When she donated, she asked Verizon to match her donation and they did. That doubled the impact of her contribution.

Handmade Especially for You is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt non-profit charity, so any donation you make will be tax-deductible. We provide appropriate receipts for all donations. 100% of your donation goes toward helping abused women.

If you want to donate scarves or yarn, please mail to:

Handmade Especially for You c/o Leslye Borden
30065 Grandpoint Lane
Rancho Palos Verdes CA 90275

If you want to donate $$$$, which we need to pay for the huge holiday shipping bill we anticipate, you can mail a check to the above address, or contribute via PayPal. There is a link on our website.

Thanks for supporting Handmade Especially for You. I appreciate, and so do all the abused women.

Leslye Borden, Founder
www.handmadeespecially.org

Handmade needs 6,000 comfort scarves by the end of the year/September Newsletter

September 30, 2011

Today’s topics:

 We distributed 9,000 comfort scarves so far this year; just 6,000 more to go to reach our goal of 15,000 by the end of the year. WE CAN DO IT!

 Our success is due to a huge team of volunteers

 Shelters are very grateful for our beautiful comfort scarves

 Yarn companies and individuals have donated generously to our cause

 Attending Vogue Knitting Live was good for Handmade

 Our affiliated groups are making and donating scarves

 Scarves are coming in from all over Los Angeles, California, the USA, and the world

 Looking ahead

And now for the details:

We distributed 1,000 comfort scarves again this month! That means all of you did a lot of kit making, knitting, crocheting, adding fringe, wrapping scarves, packing boxes, and shipping. There’s a lot that goes into the making and distributing of our comfort scarves. It used to be that just a few dedicated participants did it all, but our network of participants is growing and running fast to keep up with the demand for scarves. Thanks to June Grossberg’s support, we meet every Wednesday evening at her shop, Concepts in Yarn. Thanks to Sheri Schrier’s generosity, our kit makers meet at least once a week, if not twice, at the Happy Hats warehouse. To process all the scarves, we have two wrapping parties each month. By way of comparison, the 1,000 scarves we shipped this month doubles the 500 we delivered in September, 2010. The 9,000 scarves we’ve delivered so far in 2011 almost equals the 10,000 we shipped during the entire year of 2010. In October, we will equal 2010’s total. Wow. Thank you all who spend so much of your valuable time to make and distribute the scarves. You’re the greatest!

You’d almost think that after so long a time (Handmade began in October 2008) and after so many comfort scarves, that shelters might tire of them. But not at all. Shelters continue to appreciate, need, and want our scarves. In a handwritten note, Gina Galindo of the Fred Jordan Missions, expressed her desire for MORE scarves. “What a wonderful blessing it was to receive these scarves. We would love to have more.” Rest assured, Gina, more will be on their way soon.

Tracy Halstead, Director of Haven House, a shelter supported by Jewish Family Services, indicated her thanks: “Thank you for your generous donation of 20 handmade scarves. Your commitment to help abused women and children in our community is sincerely appreciated.”

Margaret Bayston, CEO/Executive Director of Laura’s House, described the two-fold impact of comfort scarves: “Not only does Laura’s House value your contribution, but (also) your community support which helps broaden awareness about domestic violence. . . “

Shannon Fors, Executive Director of The Domestic Violence Center of the Santa Clarita Valley, puts her thanks in the context of our difficult economy. “The 25 comfort scarves will be greatly appreciated by the women in our center. In our current unstable economy, we rely heavily on private donations to support our cause. . . .We realize there are many charities that you may choose to support. Thank you for choosing ours.”

Ditto from Heather Finlay, Chief Executive Officer of YWCA of San Diego County. “We can’t thank you enough for your commitment to those we help. . . We are especially grateful for your commitment to us during these challenging economic times.”

Ben Schirmer, Executive Director of Rainbow Services, the very first shelter to which we donated comfort scarves, wrote: “Your gift of 30 beautiful comfort scarves helps the women and children recovering from lives of trauma.”

Carol Adelkoff, CEO and Executive Director of 1736 Family Crisis Center, the second shelter to which we gave comfort scarves, said it again: “Your gift of 30 handmade comfort scarves makes such a difference to those most in need. . . Your thoughtful gift provides comfort to the women and children who are working hard to reach a better tomorrow, and your continued support is truly appreciated.”

We, of course, could not make so many scarves or such beautiful ones, without the generous support of yarn companies who agree with our the value of our project. September began with my coming home one afternoon to find 4 huge cases of yarn on my front porch. They came from Susan Druding of Crystal Palace Yarns. Susan knows just what we like and sends us regular shipments. But this was outstanding—106 pounds of yarn! When I wrote a thank you letter to Susan, I mentioned we needed size 17 knitting needles. Wouldn’t you know it. Susan packed up another box with size 17 needles and filled up the empty space in the carton with more yarn. It was waiting for me one afternoon the next week when I returned home.

Coats & Clark and Skacel Knitting both sent three boxes of solid colored yarn, which we’re always running out of. Knitting Fever, Lion Brand Yarn, Plymouth Yarn, and Trendsetter Yarns each sent a big case of yarn. I can’t tell you all how much I love it when I come home to find a box of yarn on my front porch. I feel like it is manna, dropping magically from the heavens, to fill Handmade’s insatiable hunger for yarn. Thank you, Susan Druding, Teresa Johnson, Becky Moss, Sion Elalouf, Jack Blumenthal, Pattie Tereskun, and Barry Klein. Please, keep that manna coming.

Karen Ing, a longtime supporter of Handmade, decided to whittle down her stash again. This time she found 350 skeins of yarn to donate. She must have some stash! Jeff Stemler gathered his deceased wife’s stash—3 cases and 2 huge trash bags worth-- and donated it to Handmade. He lives in San Diego and so does my son, Mitch. He gave the yarn to Mitch and then my husband and I used the opportunity of Mitch’s birthday to pick it up. What a treat! Meredith Zelaya, Founder of Knits for Needs, saw Handmade’s request for yarn on Ravelry. She sent a huge box of yarn. Manna—I’m not kidding.

I attended Vogue Knitting Live’s first event held in Los Angeles, at the Hyatt Regency in Century City. There were many classes and vendors. I took a class on Yarn Substitution because I wanted to learn how to adjust the amount of yarn we put into our kits when the weights of the yarns vary. I didn’t learn that, but the class was interesting. I learned a lot about many different varieties of yarns and confirmed some things I suspected about yarn, most notably that yarn manufacturers sometimes make a yarn look thicker by spinning a lot of air into the threads.

I visited every vendor in the Marketplace. Virginia Gibbs of Tootsie Yarns was displaying her fancy yarns. I met her several times previously at Concepts in Yarn. It was nice to see her again, especially since she filled up a bag with novelty yarn and gave it to me on the spot!

I made many other contacts who said they would ship yarn once they returned home from the show. One was Steve Be, owner of the Yarn Garage in Minneapolis MN. I told him we had a lot of volunteers in MN. He said he wanted to support Handmade, but didn’t want to ship yarn from MN to CA only for me to ship it back again. He offered instead to donate yarn directly to MN Handmade volunteers. I already have emailed them and they are very excited about this prospect. What a nice outcome.

Linda Friege, a dedicated local volunteer, has a sister in Philadelphia PA who had a lot of yarn to donate but, like Steve in MN, didn’t want to pay the shipping to send it to CA. I told Linda that Dr. Laura Guertin, organizer of a Handmade affiliate in Philadelphia might like it. Linda gave her sister the info and Dr. Laura is thrilled with the donation.

That tells us that the Philly affiliate is doing well. And so are others. I ran into Renee Hoffman at VKL. She was with several members from her local Knitting Guild. They all contribute to her affiliate in Long Beach CA. In my yarn class at VKL, I met a woman who wants to join our San Fernando Valley CA affiliate, headed by Vicki Ringer. She and Vicki have already touched base. Vicki is going strong. She has all the scarves she needs through the end of this year wrapped and tagged! Ann Miller, in Pueblo CO continues to deliver scarves to her local YWCA. Barb Kochuba’s group, Comfort Scarves, is growing. She now delivers 80 scarves each month to shelters in Pittsburgh and Southwestern PA.

Comfort scarves arrive every day from everywhere. Marsha Parkhill brought 185 scarves she collected from members of All Crafts for Charity. ACFC picks a charity each month and their members do the craft that charity specializes in. I was amazed when Marsha handed me the address labels she saved from the packages of scarves that came to her. ACFC has lots of members and the members come from at least as many places as Handmade’s contributors do. Luckily, Marsha said I could write one big thank you letter and she would distribute it to the membership.

Bonnie Jacobs (from Burlington NJ) hand delivered scarves to me. You may remember Bonnie. Last year, she wrote a pattern for an indoor crocheted Frisbee for Handmade. And she taught her daughter’s Girl Scout troop to knit so they could make comfort scarves. A multi-talented craftswoman, Bonnie was in LA to attend the dedication of a stained glass window she made for the Hollywood United Methodist Church (http://www.bonniejdesign.com/creations.htm). She knows how much Handmade needs comfort scarves so she stuffed 7 into her suitcase and gave them to me when we met for brunch. We were happy to meet in person. And aren’t her scarves beautiful! By the way, Bonnie is tall and I am short. In the photo, I am standing on the curb. You can see the photo of us on the Handmade website www.handmadeespecially.org

While we’re mentioning usual ways of getting comfort scarves to Handmade, I must mention Carmen Giovanna Saborio who shipped us 26 absolutely beautiful comfort scarves all the way from Heredia Costa Rica. When I thanked her profusely for her contribution, she told me it was her “honor” to participate in our cause. I was very touched!

We are back in touch with Peggy Bomba, the woman who teaches crochet to female inmates at the Craig County Jail in Craig CO. Every so often, I send a big box of crochet kits to Peggy. Whenever she gets a new group of girls, she teaches them crochet, which she says “keeps down the fighting.” When they learn it well enough, she allows them to do one of our kits. The girls are very proud of their accomplishment when the finish a kit and have made a lovely scarf. Some of them have been abused themselves and want to learn more about what they can do to change their lives. Peggy and I once talked on the phone for an hour, trying to find shelters for them once they left jail. The nearest shelter was in Reno NV. I love that making scarves helps the inmates and that receiving scarves helps the abuse victims. We never know the impact of what we do. Making comfort scarves has certainly turned out to have broader implications than I ever could have imagined.

Annette and Alexander Maass, our “knitting couple” from Leutenbach GERMANY have been regular contributors to Handmade ever since we started promoting Handmade on Ravelry. They sent so many scarves and yarn I thought they must own a yarn shop. But they don’t. In fact, for a long time, Annette wasn’t working. Last month she told me she got a job and would now make a monthly cash contribution to Handmade. I was astounded. And she has. I am so grateful. I appreciate her commitment to our cause, even from so far away.

I mentioned a while ago that Cindy Hanson made a generous donation. Ameriprise Financial, the company she works for, doubled it. Their check arrived this month. It covers one month’s shipping. Talk about manna. Please, if your company matches charitable donations, please consider donating to Handmade so they will too.

Needing actual $$$$ and trying to raise money is a whole new world for me. Luckily, I have received suggestions from our volunteers that I would like to share with you. Julie Billings, for instance, was making her Christmas list for her family. She thought: “Since I have so much, I am thinking about asking family to donate to Handmade Especially for You as a gift idea.” Julie asked me to tell her idea in the Newsletter in case any of you would like to do the same. And, if you would like to make a donation in honor of someone, I can do that too. Our Newsletter goes out far and wide so the mention would be meaningful.

Looking ahead. We have a lot to do before the end of the year. When we ship our 1,000 scarves in October, we will have only 5,000 to go to reach 15,000. The point isn’t 15,000 as a number. The point is that the shelters have holiday parties in December with lots of attendees. We hope to send 2,500 in November and finish up with another 2,500 in early December. We already have on hand more than 1,000 for October. We have piles of narrow scarves set aside for teens. We have hats saved for children. But we still need more than 4,000 new scarves. So that means we hope you will keep knitting/crocheting comfort like mad. Last year we needed 3,000 for the holidays but last year we served only 33 shelters. This year we serve 43 so we need that many more. The women and children who come to the shelters arrive with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They arrive in trauma, having just escaped from their abusive environment. Our scarves mean so much to them. Please, please keep your scarves coming.

In each Newsletter, I always try to thank everyone who has contributed during that month. I know I miss someone, but never on purpose. If you are one who was not mentioned, please don’t be insulted. I feel grateful to all Handmade’s participants, volunteers, scarfers, donors, and sponsors.

If you want to donate scarves or yarn, please mail them to:

Handmade Especially for You c/o Leslye Borden
30065 Grandpoint Lane
Rancho Palos Verdes CA 90275

If you want to donate $$$$, mail your check to the above address or make a donation through PayPal. You can access it on our website: www.handmadeespecially.org

Many thanks,

Leslye Borden, Founder
Handmade Especially for You
501(c)3

Handmade Especially for You donated 1,000 comfort scarves to abused women

September 7, 2011

We’re so busy the Newsletter is LATE. Here’s the reasons:

 We distributed more than 8,000 comfort scarves so far this year

 Articles about Handmade Especially for You appeared in Knitting Paradise, Knits for Needs, and The Daily Breeze

 Macy’s Shop for a Cause was very successful for Handmade

 Shelters appreciate comfort scarves

 It takes a village of yarn donors to make 8,000 comfort scarves

 Our affiliates are busy too

 The story of the “traveling scarf”

 Please volunteer for Handmade even if you can’t knit or crochet

 We’re starting our big push to reach our goal of delivering 15,000 (total for the year) comfort scarves to our 43 shelters for abused women by the END OF NOVEMBER or BEGINNING OF DECEMBER

And now for the details:

In August, Handmade donated 1,000 comfort scarves to 33 + shelters throughout S. CA. This is amazing! We couldn’t have done this without your willingness to donate your time and creativity. It took all our kit makers, all our knitters/crocheters, all our wrappers to make and deliver all these scarves. Thank you all so much. By comparison, when I wrote the August Newsletter last year, we were cheering about shipping 420 scarves. We’ve come a long way in just one year. So far this year, we have made and distributed at least 8,000 comfort scarves (compared to 5,000 last year)! Good job everyone!

Positive publicity has helped us a lot. The Daily Breeze, a local So CA newspaper, featured Handmade in their Calendar. We received many inquiries about volunteering and quite a number of newcomers started attending our Wednesday evening get-togethers at Concepts in Yarn. Thanks to June Grossberg, the owner, who supports Handmade by providing space for us to meet and bins for kits and finished scarves. Remember to come early if you want a seat around the big table. Actually, it’s also lots of fun when the table is so crowded we all have to squeeze in next to each other.

Knitting Paradise, an online knitting magazine with many good tips and helpful articles, featured Handmade. We had a good response from their readers, which means a lot when we need so many scarves.

Knits for Needs, an Atlanta based charity, donates to anyone who needs “warm stuff.” Meridith Zelaya, its Founder, heard about Handmade on Ravelry or Twitter, where I had posted an SOS for yarn donations. Not only did she send us a box of yarn, but she also posted info about Handmade on her blog. Fabulous publicity for Handmade. We appreciate!

Our best publicity in August came from our participation in Macy’s Shop for a Cause event on August 27. Macy’s gave us an excellent location, right on the main floor between Cosmetics and the escalator. We had a steady stream of potential volunteers all afternoon. We brought lots of kits with us and distributed almost all we had with us. Some of the people we met at Macy’s have already joined us on Wednesday evenings at Concepts in Yarn. One called to get her daughter’s Girl Scout troop involved in Handmade. Another wants to form a group at her local Temple. By generating excitement like this, I think we will be able to achieve our goal for 2011.

Shelters love our comfort scarves. Way back in October, 2008, when I made our first delivery to Rainbow Services in San Pedro, I didn’t imagine the impact of handmade scarves on abused women. Of course, I hoped they would love the scarves, that having a scarf would be a comfort to them. But I didn’t imagine the way receiving a handmade comfort scarf would lift an abused woman’s self-esteem so she could begin to transform her life. I see this pattern again and again as we send our scarves to new shelters. The directors all say what Rainbow’s director said when I first started delivering comfort scarves to her.

Jody Winger, for instance, at WINGS in Covina, sent a note saying, “The women here at WINGS love the scarves you all make. It’s funny to see them pick them out to go with their outfits. The women are very appreciative for everything, since most come with nothing. . . . We . . . appreciate you all for taking the time to make them. It does make the women feel good. . . “

Marti DeLaO at Interface Children & Family Services in Camarillo, wrote: “Thank you so much for your gift of 15 handmade comfort scarves. We at Interface work every day to . . . heal the effects of the abuse, neglect, and abandonment of children, domestic violence, and many similar issues. . . . You make a real difference.”

Ronnie Root, at St. Clare’s Home in San Diego, continues the above themes. “Thank you for your generous donation of comfort scarves to assist us in serving abused women and children. Generosity such as yours allows us to continue our mission. . . . We. . . hope you continue to help us restore hope in these delicate lives. Thank you for showing these fragile community members that you care!”

Honestly, after reading notes like these, and I read many of them every month, I wish we could reach every shelter everywhere!

Our kit makers—Barbara Klein, Linda Friege, Marie Cortez, Sharon McCann and Yumi Wu—are enjoying the new workshop. They have plenty of room to spread out the bins of yarn so they can see which yarns coordinate best. It’s incredible to walk in while they are working and see bin after bin of color-sorted yarn and piles and piles of new kits. Their kits are so beautiful. They do a great job. Thank you, ladies!

We couldn’t make these beautiful kits without the contributions of so many generous yarn companies and people. Postings on Ravelry and Twitter brought in many yarn donations. Skacel sent a big box of yarn. The Schaefer Yarn Co also contributed. Crystal Palace, Lion Brand, Knitting Fever, Coats & Clark, Trendsetter Yarns and Plymouth Yarns all said they would send yarn. Looks like our warehouse will be full in September. These companies are really wonderful. They have supported Handmade continually since spring, 2009 and have never let us down. One of the things I have learned is that no one company can provide all the yarn we need. It takes a whole village of yarn companies. We make a typical scarf with Fun Fur from Lion Brand, main color from Knitting Fever, and contrasting color from Crystal Palace.

Just as easily, we could start with Whisper from Crystal Palace, main color from Coats & Clark, and contrasting color from Schaefer. Or novelty yarn from Skacel, main color from Plymouth, and contrasting color from Trendsetter. The variations are infinite. But it takes the donations from all these companies (and more not mentioned today) to achieve our desired effect: an absolutely beautiful and individual personal gift for an abused woman who has escaped her abusive environment.

Good news from Handmade’s affiliates. Renee Hoffman (Long Beach CA) reports she donated 20 more comfort scarves to Interval House. Vicki Ringer (San Fernando Valley CA) delivered more scarves to Haven Hills. Vicki says she has deliveries all wrapped and ready through the beginning of next year. Barb Kochuba (PA) now donates at least 80 scarves per month to shelters throughout Southwestern PA. She’s adding washcloths, fleecy blankets, hats, etc. for the holidays. Ann Miller (Pueblo, CO) continues to deliver 10 scarves each month. We never add the deliveries of our affiliates into our deliveries. If we did, I wonder what the new total would be. I’m sure we’d be amazed! I’m impressed just thinking about what number would be.

Bonnie Jacobs, a long time supporter of Handmade, sent us a “traveling scarf.” Bonnie started it in NJ, where she lives, and sent it on to friends throughout the country. Each friend added a few rows. Bonnie finished it and sent it on to Handmade. Everyone who worked on the scarf signed the gift tag. Quite a nice scarf with a very warm story behind it. Bonnie makes the fringe by chaining 10 stitches down, 10 stitches up, attaching to the main scarf, and then down an up again. We all love Bonnie’s scarves and her enthusiasm for Handmade.


This time of year is crunch time for Handmade. We need so much yarn. We need so many kits. We need to send the kits to our volunteers. We need more volunteers to knit/crochet more scarves. But even if you can’t knit or crochet, you can still participate in Handmade. We need someone to punch holes in the gift tags so we can attach them to the scarves. We need people to add novelty yarn when the scarves arrive without it. We need more people to wrap the scarves before we ship them. (We’re already having 2 wrapping parties each month. We may need to have 3 in November and December.) We need more people to pack the boxes. We need more money to pay for the shipping. It’s all so interrelated. Every time we add more shelters, we need more of everything else. Our team works very hard. Many contribute in several different ways—they make kits and then knit scarves. Or they knit scarves and then wrap them. I know how much work it took to ship 2,000 scarves for Mother’s Day. I’m trying to plan ahead so none of our dedicated volunteers burn out when we distribute 2,500 scarves in November and then 2,500 again in December. Please do what you can to support our project.

As usual, I have so many people to thank, I never can get them all into one Newsletter, no matter how hard I try. But please be assured, I feel grateful to all of you. Distributing comfort scarves to abused women is a really great thing that we all have done together. Your support and participation makes Handmade all the more meaningful to me and especially to all the women who receive our scarves. Thank you all so much.

If you want to donate scarves or yarn, please mail to:

Handmade Especially for You c/o Leslye Borden
30065 Grandpoint Lane
Rancho Palos Verdes CA 90275

If you want to donate $$$, you can send your check to the above address. You can also donate through PayPal. There is a link on our website: www.handmadeespecially.org.

Thanks again.

Leslye Borden, Founder
Handmade Especially for You
www.handmadeespecially.org
501(c)3 EIN: 26-3529292

PS You'll find the photos that illustrate this Newsletter on our website www.handmadeespecially.org

Handmade Especially for You has a new work shop/July Newsletter

July Newsletter

July 31, 2011

So much exciting news I hardly know where to begin:

 Thanks to Happy Hats for Kids in Hospitals, Handmade has a work shop where we can store our yarn and make kits

 We have over 1,000 comfort scarves ready to ship to our 43 shelters.

 Yarn companies and others continue their generous support.

 We’re fund-raising by selling discount tickets to Macy’s Shop for a Cause, August 27.

 Several special people deserve mention

 Shelters for abused women appreciate comfort scarves.

And now for the details.

Thanks to Supervisor Don Knabe and Rebekah Kim in his office for putting us in touch with Sheri Schrier. Sheri founded Happy Hats for Kids in Hospitals 20 years ago. Our history parallels hers. In fact, she and I found so much in common between our two non-profits, that Sheri invited Handmade to use her warehouse to store our yarn and use as a workshop to make our kits. We spent the last few weeks getting everything organized, buying liability insurance, moving the yarn from my house, and now we are actually making kits there. Sheri’s generosity to us is incredible. We do not have to pay any rent, and while we have to put away all our tools, yarn, kits, etc. after every work session, we have so much space to operate that our kit making is much faster and easier. Sheri herself does a lot of good in the community through Happy Hats. Inmates at prisons make the hats. Volunteers decorate them. Disabled adults from Easter Seals put the hats in bags with coloring books and crayons. I’m sure there’s a lot more Sheri does that I don’t know about yet, but I will tell you as I find out. She is an excellent role model for me. I have already learned a lot from her that will benefit Handmade as much, I hope, as the works space she has provided. Thank you, Sheri!

Due to the crush of moving and the demands of my family (we have many birthdays in July), we did not ship scarves in July. But we have them ready to go and will send them out as soon as I return from celebrating our granddaughter’s 13th birthday. In last month’s Newsletter, I reported we had distributed 7,000 so far in 2011. Our July shipping will bring that to 8,000. That means we have only 7,000 more to go to reach our 2011 goal of 15,000 comfort scarves. We have reached shelters in most of the counties in S. CA. Once we contact San Bernardino, I feel we will have reached them all.

Of course, we could not do all this without the hard work of many people. First and foremost, our kit makers—Barbara Klein, Linda Friege, Marie Cortez, Sharon McCann, and Yumi Wu. They are a really great team. They know the goal ahead and are trying to make enough kits so reaching that goal will not be overly wild and crazy in November.

Again in July we had two wrapping parties. That’s the reason we have so many scarves ready to ship. Thanks as well to this dedicated group—Anita Stevens, Ann and Jessica Nye, Barbara Klein, Chris Needham, Enid Malm, Evelyn Dow, Kathy Allen, Linda Friege, Maria Cesca, Marie Cortez, Mary Gravelin, Nancy English, Sharon McCann, Teresa Copley, Therese Shaefer, and Yumi Wu. Not everyone comes to both parties, but the parties are lots of fun, lunch is good, and all the scarves get wrapped!

We wouldn’t have so many scarves to wrap without our core group of knitters at Concepts in Yarn. And we have many dedicated volunteers throughout the country who participate. We ship our kits (knit or crochet, so please specify which you want) to many; we ship boxes of yarn to the really big scarfers; and many contributors send scarves made entirely from their own stash. Groups associated with senior centers, such as the one in Culver City, make a lot (you can see them with their finished scarves on our website). As do church groups. Thank you all for making it possible for Handmade to distribute comfort scarves to so many shelters. We really couldn’t do it without you. Handmade is a big national community. We appreciate every participant!

Needing 7,000 more scarves means we need a lot more kits. Needing more kits means we need lots more yarn. Luckily, yarn donations were excellent in July. Susan Druding, Crystal Palace Yarns, came through for us again. Her Labrador and Whisper yarns make great kits. She sent us a sample scarf made from Glitter Ribbon and Whisper. It was inspirational and now we make kits like that. She’s the greatest. Tymon Warda, Knitting Fever, sent another huge box containing many of our favorites, especially Ella Rae. Westminster Fibers Canada sent a box (from Canada!) containing On Your Toes and Tiara. We mix sock yarn such as On Your Toes with solid colored knitting worsted such as Ella Rae to make exceptionally beautiful comfort scarves. One company’s donation works with another company’s. That’s the reason we call our kits “magic balls.” It’s magic how we put them together and magic how volunteers make them into beautiful comfort scarves. We use every donation. Thank you so much.

Individuals donated yarn as well. Anne Podlesak sent 3 boxes of really beautiful, soft yarn. Sue Welsh’s friend, Jackie Glid, who sold yarn at Knitter’s Guild meetings, decided to move and didn’t want to take all her yarn with her, so Sue donated 5 huge 55-gallon trash bags of yarn to Handmade. Annette and Alexander Maass, our knitting couple from Leutenbach, Germany shipped 2 boxes of yarn. I asked them if they own a yarn shop. But they don’t. They want to do everything they can to support Handmade because they like what we do. I am so moved by the outpouring of generosity from all our donors. Handmade’s participants are an incredible group! Even though lots and lots of yarn arrived in July, and lots and lots of yarn did arrive, it isn’t enough to make 7,000 more scarves this year. Please continue to donate. We will continue to appreciate.

One of the best things, in addition to getting the work shop, that happened in July is that we received a check from Macy’s for our participation in Community Shopping Day last May 8. This check was our share of Macy’s ticket sales for that event. We worked hard, and we got a lot from that event thanks to all of you who bought/sold tickets for it. Now we are participating in Macy’s Shop for a Cause event on August 27. It is different from the May 8 event in that the tickets cost only $5 each and you can use them at every Macy’s throughout the country. As before, Handmade receives 100% of the purchase price of the ticket. The benefit to you when you buy a ticket is that you get 25% off your purchases on August 27 as well as a chance to win a $500 Macy’s gift card. Now that Handmade ships kits to so many more volunteers and scarves to so many more shelters, we really need more money. We hope that you will buy a ticket (you can download the coupon from our website when you donate through PayPal) or you can send me $5 and I will mail you a ticket. Or if you don’t want to go to Macy’s on the 27th, you can send me $5, and I will enter your name in the drawing. You can even use the coupon for online shopping. Directions are on the coupon.

What would be even better for Handmade than your buying a $5 ticket (but please do that!) is if you would share this event with your email contacts. If you need more info, a blurb, etc. I am glad to supply it. We need to broaden our base so that we are not asking the same generous donors over and over to donate. And we might recruit new scarfers this way as well.

I must also take time to mention the support and patience of my husband, Phil. Since October, 2008 he has accepted the increased amount of yarn coming into our house. He didn’t complain (too much) as Handmade used our guest bedroom to store finished scarves, our front and back halls to keep boxes of yarn. He carried huge boxes out to the garage when our children and grandchildren came to visit. And then he carried them back in once the kids left. He believes in Handmade. Like me, he didn’t realize the power of our scarves to help abused women change their lives. And like me, he didn’t anticipate the outpouring of community support for our project. Once Sheri donated her warehouse space, ironically, as soon as he moved all the yarn from the garage, back hall, and guest room to Happy Hats, wouldn’t you know it, all the new yarn, mentioned above, arrived. It filled the guest room, the back hall and the front hall. It took me more than a week to go through the new yarn, send thank you letters, etc. before he could load it into the “yarnmobile” so I could take it to the work shop. But I know there was a moment when he was afraid he had just made room for more yarn in the house. Every time he sees me overwhelmed by yarn in my yarn room, he comes up with a solution. Over winter vacation, he built cubbies so I could sort yarn by color. When we moved the boxes and bags of yarn keeping the yarn in the cubbies from falling out, he saw how hard it was for me to see the yarn in the cubbies, so he went out and bought 40 clear plastic containers that fit in the cubbies. He helps me so much. He’s a big secret behind Handmade’s success. Thank you so much, Phil.

Annette and Alexander Maass are the only knitting couple (that I know about) in Handmade. Bonnie and Danya Jacobs and Ann and Jessica Nye are two mother/daughters knitters in our group. Bonnie and Danya (her teen daughter), are in NJ; Ann and Jessica are local. They come to Concepts in Yarn for our Wednesday evening knitting circles and to our wrapping parties. Jessica is only 11 but she knits a beautiful scarf! Maria Denzel’s two granddaughters visited her this summer. The 10-year old knits and the 9-year old crochets. Maria kept them busy making comfort scarves. I love the idea of couples knitting together, girls knitting/crocheting with their mothers and grandmothers. If you are scarfing with a family member, loved one, significant other, please let me know. Broadening our base and sharing your experiences are very important.

Now that we send comfort scarves to 43 shelters for abused women, we receive many letters of appreciation from them. I am so happy every time I receive one of these letters. I am glad we are on the right track making and distributing comfort scarves. These letters are meant for all of you who knit, crochet, wind, wrap, donate and work hard for Handmade Especially for You! You can see them on our website.

I thank you all, too. Over and over.

If you want to donate scarves or yarn, please mail to:

Handmade Especially for You c/o Leslye Borden
30065 Grandpoint Lane
Rancho Palos Verdes CA 90275

If you want to donate $$$$ or buy a discount coupon for Macy’s Shop for a Cause, visit our website www.handmadeespecially.org and use PayPal. Or send a check to the address above.

Thanks for everything,

Leslye Borden, Founder
Handmade Especially for You
501(c)3 EIN: 26-3529292

Handmade Especially for You has donated more than 7,000 comfort scarves already this year/June Newsletter

JUNE NEWSLETTER
June 30, 2011
Today’s topics:
 We distributed just over 1,000 comfort scarves this month; more than 7,000 scarves already this year

 Thanks to all our volunteers

 Ongoing support of Concepts in Yarn and June Grossberg

 Shelters appreciate our scarves

 Yarn companies continue to be very generous

 Delta Sigma Pi fraternity made over 100 scarves

 News from our affiliated groups

 We need $$$$ for shipping and for a workshop

 We appreciate the support of all our participants

And now for the details.

Another astounding month. We delivered just over 1,000 comfort scarves to 40 shelters for abused women throughout S CA. Many people worked hard to prepare all these scarves for delivery. We had two wrap parties where Ann Nye, Chris Needham, Barbara Klein, Pat (Barbara’s friend visiting from Ohio), Enid Malm, Evelyn Dow, Kathy Allen, Linda Friege, Maria Cesca, Maria Denzel, Marie Cortez, Mary Barton, Nancy English, Sharon McCann, and Yumi Wu all wrapped, tied, packaged and taped the 40 boxes of scarves. We had lots of fun even though my family room looked like a warehouse until UPS picked up the packages.

Many of the volunteers who participate in wrapping parties and kit making sessions come from our core group of volunteers who meet at Concepts in Yarn on Wednesday evenings. Thanks to the generosity and dedication of June Grossberg, owner, who encouraged me to go forward with Handmade and start the knitting club under her auspices. June provides two bins: one for kits that need to be knitted and another for finished scarves. When one is full, the other is empty. Our group has grown so much that we crowd around a dining room table with all its leaves in and a card table as well. Many participants come early, just to get a place at the table. Sometimes, we have two seatings. It is a warm, friendly experience. June’s sponsorship and support have been so valuable to the growth and success of Handmade. I must mention my thanks to her again and again.

The directors of the shelters acknowledge the value of receiving comfort scarves in breaking the cycle of low self-esteem/acceptance of domestic violence of their clients. Here are snippets from thank you letters they sent to Handmade:

Luciann Maulhardt, Executive Director of Casa Youth Shelter (Los Alamitos) writes: “we send out deepest appreciation for your most welcome donation of 25 comfort scarves. . . .we consider ourselves truly blessed to have such good friends as you.”

Heather Frizzell at the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission writes: “this letter expresses our sincere gratitude for the comfort scarves. The women and little girls here . . . were extremely happy to receive the scarves. They are blessed to know women donated their precious time to make them a special handmade gift. They have been put to use and cherished by many.”

Wanda Carter at Corona Norco Rescue Mission says: “The beautiful scarves arrived yesterday and they are just gorgeous. I know the ladies who received them just love them.”

Annette Kosker, Volunteer Coordinator at YWCA of Glendale, tells us: “thank you for your recent donation of 25 hand made scarves. The work you do brings such joy and warmth to those you touch. It is due to collaboration with generous people like you that we can continue to operate our core programs. . . .to empower women who are victims of domestic violence to move forward and start their lives anew. . . . last year we provided services to 797 women and their children.

We all understand that we couldn’t make 1,000 scarves each month without the generosity of many yarn companies. This month, our regulars (not that we take them for granted)—Susan Druding at Crystal Palace Yarns, Becky Moss at Skacel Collection, and Tymon Warda at Knitting Fever—were joined by Emir Koc from Feza Yarns and Mara Buttarazzi at Westminster Fibres Canada. Incredible, isn’t it. And still not enough. We can’t sit back comfortably, thinking we have enough, not when we need at least enough yarn for 5,000 scarves in November/December. We appreciate the ongoing support of all these companies and hope more will join them making huge contributions. Even though I “complain” that boxes of yarn fill several rooms in my house, I am not really complaining. I am thrilled that Handmade receives so many donations. I appreciate every ball of yarn.

For the past few months, we have been working with Kelly Phan, President of the Delta Sigma Pi business fraternity at Cal State University, Long Beach. Kelly picked up more than 100 kits so members of her group could make comfort scarves as their community service activity. She brought the finished scarves the night before our second wrapping party. We really needed them to reach our shipping requirements the next day. Thank you so much, Kelly and members of your group. We hope you will continue supporting our project. We need lots and lots of knitters and crocheters.

News from our affiliated groups throughout the US and Canada. Renee Hoffman delivered 20 scarves to Interval House in Long Beach; Ann Miller brought 13 scarves to Family Crisis Service in Canon City and 12 more to the Pueblo YWCA; Barb Kochuba delivered around 80 scarves to shelters throughout southeastern Pennsylvania. She and Marg Grieve (in Nelson BC Canada) both are recovering from carpel tunnel surgery. They’re both slowly getting back to knitting. Vicki Ringer delivered another 15 scarves to Haven Hills in Canoga Park. Members of Vicki’s church expanded their involvement to more than knitting comfort scarves. They help the shelter by adopting families, donating food, and making sure everyone has what they need for special occasions such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. There are so many ways to do good; I’m impressed that Handmade’s volunteers donate in so many ways.

The economic slowdown has even affected Handmade. Many would-be volunteers cannot afford to make a donation to cover the shipping of kits to them. Many ask if we can make an exception in their cases because they have lost their jobs, are looking for work, live on a fixed income, etc. I would love to help them, but as it is, at least 30% of people to whom I send yarn do not repay the cost of the shipping. I think it would be great if we had a buddy system, so those who can afford to do so would donate double the amount of the cost of shipping yarn to them so I could use the extra to pay the shipping of someone who can’t afford to pay their own.

In addition, the cost of shipping itself has skyrocketed, both because Handmade sends comfort scarves so many more shelters and because gasoline prices have increased. This month alone, Handmade spent almost $300 on sending scarves to shelters. Every time we hear that the price of oil has gone up, I shudder, knowing that the cost of sending the scarves out will go up too. If any of you have any contacts at UPS, FedEx, USPS, please tell them about Handmade. We need a better deal on shipping in order to reach our goals.

We are trying to find a space where we can consolidate receiving yarn, yarn storage, kit making, shipping kits, receiving scarves, and shipping scarves to shelters. Having a workshop has been our dream for a long time. Now it is a really urgent need. It has been hard to find a spot. Since all our cash goes to paying for shipping the scarves to shelters, we don’t have cash to pay for rent; so we are limited by searching for a free space. So far, no such luck.

Maybe all this will change, due of course to the generosity and support of our volunteers. This month, Chris Needham and Cindy Hanson each made donations of over $200. Cindy’s employer, Ameriprise Financial, will double the amount she donated. Julie Billings volunteered over 50 hours of knitting last year, so Toyota Financial, her employer, donated $250 to Handmade. These donations are like manna to me. Please check out your company’s donations policies. If they match cash donations and/or reward volunteerism, I hope you will consider Handmade as a recipient. These donations and matching grants have made me more optimistic about our raising enough money to pay rent. If we can do that, we will have a much broader selection of possible workshops. Handmade’s volunteers make everything possible.

We depend on each one of you for Handmade’s continued growth and success. We couldn’t donate so many scarves to so many shelters without your participation. Whatever you do, whether you knit or crochet scarves, share patterns, make kits, donate yarn, money, equipment, spend time winding or wrapping, all are important. Many, many thanks.

Remember, if you want to donate scarves or yarn, please mail to:

Handmade Especially for You c/o Leslye Borden
30065 Grandpoint Lane
Rancho Palos Verdes CA 90275

If you want to donate $$$$, please send a check to the above address or use the PayPal link on our website www.handmadeespecially.org

Thanks in advance.

Leslye
www.handmadeespecially.org
501(c)3 EIN: 26-3529292

Handmade donated almost 2,000 comfort scarves for Mother's Day and 1,000 more in May

MAY NEWSLETTER

May 31, 2011

Today’s topics:

With the help of many volunteers, we delivered just under 2,000 comfort scarves in April and just over 1000 in May

We now supply shelters in Ventura and Riverside counties; 43 shelters in all
Shelters love our comfort scarves

Yarn companies continue generously supporting Handmade

Individual donors contribute a lot

Macy’s Community Shopping Day

Welcome to the Culver City Senior Center’s knitting group

Still looking for a site where we can coordinate all our activities under one roof

One year anniversary of my surgery; I have recovered

Remember, there is too much domestic violence and too few comfort scarves

And now for the details:

In April, we just about met our goal of delivering 2,000 comfort scarves in time for Mother’s Day. We were only 70 scarves short, but no shelter complained. All of you worked so hard to achieve this goal. Boxes arrived on my doorstep every day. It was incredible. I guess I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t make it all the way to 2,000, but we really outdid ourselves in May by donating 1,025 scarves. So now I feel much better.

We couldn’t have done this without the crucial help of many volunteers, and not just our wonderful scarf and kit makers. It took us almost 4 weeks to prepare the scarves for Mother’s Day. On the final day of that huge effort, three of us – Enid Malm, Evelyn Dow and I – worked until 6 p.m. to get everything ready. From that we could see we needed to increase our wrapping parties to twice a month, which we have done. It’s twice as much fun, not just twice as much work. This month’s volunteers included: Barbara Klein, Chris Needham, Enid Malm, Kathy Allen, Linda Friege, Marie Cortez, Mary Gravlin, Myra Kumagae, Nancy English, Sharon McCann, Teresa Copley, and Yumi Wu. It’s hard to imagine what it will take to get all the scarves ready for Christmas, but we know we will have to plan ahead. Wrapping this many scarves takes tremendous care and effort. Thanks to all of you – yarn donors, kit makers, knitters/crocheters, wrappers, schleppers, and shippers -- who participated. You are a dedicated group of volunteers. Handmade certainly would not be where it is today without each and every one of you.

In April, we added 6 new shelters to our growing list of those receiving comfort scarves. They are: Domestic Violence Shelters in Lompoc, Santa Barbara, and Santa Maria, East Los Angeles Women’s Center, Peace Over Violence, and WINGS (YWCA) Covina. In May, because we had so many scarves available (some arrived too late for Mother’s Day), we added 7 more. They are: Casas Shelter, Coachella Valley Rescue Mission, Coalition to End Family Violence, Corona Norco Rescue Mission, Genesis Center, Interface Children & Family Services, and Valley Restart. Now I just have to hope that our volume of incoming scarves will keep up with the number of shelters we want to supply. Keep scarfing. Please!

Shelters love our scarves. Here are a few excerpts from the pile of thank you letters I receive from them. Kitty Glass, Community Outreach Coordinator at Family Violence Project, writes:

I walked into my office today and was welcomed by another box of your beautiful handiwork. Thank you so very much and the women will be thrilled as always. Since we have so many folks in and out of our shelters along with our counseling center clients, your beautiful offerings are enjoyed by so many. . .

Marti DeLaO, Director of Fund Development at Interface Children & Family Services, writes: “Thank you so much for your gift of 15 comfort scarves. . . . The scarves are lovely. Your support makes a real difference.”

Heather Masterton, Director of Development, at Peace Over Violence, writes: “We are honored that you chose our agency to be a recipient of such beautiful and time intensive individual creations. Two women who each received a scarf had this to share:

Wow! I really appreciate this gift. It’s nice to know that someone out there cares.

Thank you for this scarf. I can tell that a lot of time and craftsmanship went into making it. This really makes my day!

One of the clients at St. Clare’s Home sent a hand printed card: “Thank you so very much for sending the scarves. They are beautiful. We truly appreciate you all for making these for us. This is an amazing gift.”

Annette Kosker, Volunteer Coordinator at YWCA of Glendale, writes:

Thank you for your recent donation of hand knit scarves. . . . The work you do brings such joy and warmth to those you touch. It is due to collaboration with generous people like you that we can continue to operate. . . .Domestic Violence Project – empowering women who are victims of domestic violence to move forward and start their lives anew.

Appreciations such as these keep us going. We are thrilled that our work continues to be so meaningful for its recipients.

Our yarn donors have been very generous. Crystal Palace Yarns, Knitting Fever, Coats & Clark, and Skacell Knitting all sent huge cases of yarn in April. What would we do without them! In addition, we received yarn from Brown Sheep and Cheryl Oberle Designs. Denise Interchangeable Needles and Skacell sent circular needles so we can make horizontal scarves that use up our scraps. However, that was in April. We made 3,000 scarves using these donations. Right now, we’re pretty wiped out of yarn. We need more donations. We’re like the “Hungry Caterpillar.” We always need more. Without yarn, we cannot make scarves.

Individuals have contributed as well. Some people hand me a box of plastic bags every time they see me. Others buy Fun Fur and other novelty yarn any time they see it. Some of the kit makers purchase yarn they need to make perfect kits. Many do not tell me what they have donated but I know these anonymous and other contributions occur all the time and I appreciate them, even if I cannot thank you all personally in this Newsletter.

On May 14, we participated in Macy’s Community Shopping Day. This was our first experience with such an event and I think it was pretty successful for us. We sold discount tickets to our friends and family ($10 each). These tickets allowed the purchaser to shop at Macy’s and receive discounts on what they bought. Handmade could keep 100% of the $10 fee. We sold almost 130 tickets so we earned $1,300. I think we spent most of this on shipping scarves to our 43 shelters. But it was great to have this money so we could do so. Macy’s is having another such event in September. This time the tickets will be only $5, but they can be used at every Macy’s, so I hope we will participate again.

Our affiliates continue doing well.

Renee Hoffman donated 20 comfort scarves to Interval House in Long Beach CA

Vicki Ringer donated 20 comfort scarves to Haven Hills in Canoga Park CA

Tammy Peters donated 8 comfort scarves to Services to Abused Families in Culpeper VA

Barb Kochuba’s group, Comfort Scarves, has expanded its reach from Pittsburgh to all of Southeastern PA.

I am always thrilled to receive scarves from people around the country. When I receive them from Germany, England, Scotland, Singapore, etc., as I do from time to time, I am really excited. This month I receive a box of 26 scarves from Carmen Giovanna in Costa Rica. I was very impressed. Thank you, Carmen.

We have several other very prolific scarf donors who never get mentioned because they are local. Emma, who lives near Barbara and Mary, sometimes knits as many as 30 scarves per week. Joanne Garlick, in Sunnyvale, crochets huge numbers of scarves. So does Janet Deininger. And Elizabeth O’Connell. We depend on you to keep scarfing. We’re so glad you’re dedicated to our cause.

Happily for Handmade, we have another source of scarf makers. Women in the knitting class at the Culver City Senior Center make 60 or so scarves each month. Vivian Brown leads the group. Sometimes her class is so popular that she runs out of places for everyone to sit.

So far we have many irons in the fire as far as finding space for a workshop, but no space. Everyone we talk to is very supportive, but despite the fact that there are empty spaces all over, no one yet has come forward to donate one to Handmade. We have received some lovely letters of refusal, however. So please keep your eyes open. If you see a space, hear of a space, know a generous landlord, please make contact on behalf of Handmade and advise me so I can follow up asap. We really need a space. It is so inconvenient for us to have our yarn divided between 4 homes. And to have some of the kits at one house and some at another. We have done well so far using this method, but as we need more and more kits and scarves, we need to become more efficient. Here’s hoping we get our break this month.

I have just celebrated the one year anniversary of my big surgery. And I am happy to report after zillions of medical tests that the doctors can’t find any place on my aorta where there might be another dissection. That is a big relief. And although I am pretty much back to normal as far as capacity for work, I still have to rest when I overdo, like when we shipped 2,000 comfort scarves. As you have seen from this Newsletter, Handmade has lots of volunteers, so I do not overdo too often.

Finally, as I have said many times, we should be crying that there is such demand for our comfort scarves, not cheering that we are making and delivering so many. I wish that statistics showed a lessening in the demand, but domestic violence is increasing. In Annette Kosker’s thank you letter, she wrote: “Unfortunately, the need for our Domestic Violence Service increases every year.” Incredible, isn’t it. It seems there is too much domestic violence and too few scarves, no matter how many we make. That doesn’t mean our work is fruitless; it just means that every scarf we contribute is important, that we need to keep on making comfort scarves.

I am thrilled with Handmade’s progress and success. As a reminder, here’s how I ended last year’s May Newsletter: “At the end of 2008, we delivered 300comfort scarves to 3 shelters. By the end of 2009, we delivered 6,500 comfort scarves to 22 shelters. Now (May, 2010) we’re working toward distributing more than 10,000 comfort scarves to well more than 25 shelters.”

Looking forward from May 2011, I expect we’ll make and distribute at least 15,000 scarves in 2011. So we’ve come a long way. We couldn’t have done it without each and every one of you. You make it all possible. Thanks so much.

Remember, if you want to donate scarves or yarn, please mail to:

Handmade Especially for You c/o Leslye Borden

30065 Grandpoint Lane

Rancho Palos Verdes CA 90275

If you want to donate $$$$, please send a check to the above address or use the PayPal link on our website www.handmadeespecially.org

Thanks in advance.

Leslye

www.handmadeespecially.org

501(c)3 EIN: 26-3529292