Knitters’ Outreach Includes Handmade Hearts for Health Care Workers
A few months ago, four friends who like to knit founded Knitting for Life and began to contribute their handmade baby hats and booties to the neonatal intensive care unit at a Bergen County hospital. While this outreach project had to be shelved during the COVID-19 outbreak, the teens continue to bring cheer to others by delivering handmade hearts and handwritten letters of gratitude to dedicated health care workers.
Knitting for Life Co-founder Rachel Mina, a freshman at the Academy of the Holy Angels, explained that her group accepts letters thanking health care workers for their service to others. The teens then pair each letter with a knitted heart and forward these special gifts to local hospitals. During the month of April, dozens of letters and hearts were distributed, much to the delight of the recipients. According to Mina, 25 letters and hearts were delivered on Monday, April 27.
Mina works with co-founders Hannah Ferrer, Francesca Osborn, and Olivia Culleton. The teens became friends while attending middle school in Ridgefield Park. Although they chose to attend different high schools, the girls remain connected through their service work.
Knitting for Life’s founders consider their enterprise a “developing non-profit.” The group is still working to raise funds for the application fee that is part of the registration process.
“I have actually not been interested in knitting for long,” Mina reported. “This all started when Hannah put her hobby of knitting to use and donated a couple of pairs of baby booties to Englewood Medical Center. She brought this idea to us, and we decided to learn how to knit. We want to spread the message of generosity and benevolence to those around us as well as give back to the health care community.”
Additional information about Knitting for Life is available on the group’s website: http://knittingforlife.org/index.html
