Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Hats for Homeless Youth at GRL 2014

It's April!  It's finally warming up!  (Knock on wood.)  The Easter Bunny will be here soon!  This can only mean one thing.  It's time to warm up those knitting needles and crochet hooks and start making a few hats for homeless LGBT youth.

Last year at GRL (GayRomLit for the uninitiated) I collected handmade hats, scarves, and mittens for the kids at Lost-n-Found Youth.  We ended up with about 75 items for the kids, which I'm sure came in handy considering the kind of winter Atlanta had.

This year GRL will be in Chicago, and there will be another collection, this time for The Broadway Youth Center.  If you knit or crochet and would like to make some things for these kids who are in such need of our love and support, that would be great.  BYC works with youth ages 12-24, so a variety of sizes and styles will work.  These items will probably see heavy use, so machine washable yarn would be a good idea.  If anyone needs help picking a knit pattern, I can make a few suggestions.  I don't crochet, so I'm pretty useless there.  And since someone asked last year, if you don't knit or crochet, or if you just don't have the time to make anything, we'll happily take store bought items for the kids, too.

Thank you for taking the time to help.  Homelessness among LGBT youth is a huge problem, often because of family rejection.   Anything we can do to help them out and let them know there are people who care about them is a good thing.

And now, if you will excuse me.  A big box of yarn arrived yesterday, and I need to get knitting!