Working with charities

I am someone that has been helping with charities for most of my adult life and it is something that I enjoy doing. I have supported charities through volunteering my time for events and such. Besides donating my time, I have also been able to support the charities through my crafting, and I have always enjoyed doing that. Through the crafting that I have done for charities I have learned quite a bit and it something that I would like to pass on to others. 

Here are a few things that I have learned:

1. Needs – figure out what is needed by the organization and the items are going to be donated to. If the items can be different sizes make sure you know what the sizes are that are needed, as well as any restrictions, such as type of yarn or colour. If you are collecting handmade blankets, make sure that you know the size that the organization wants and needs and not just a general idea.
2. Volunteers – when you have volunteers that are willing to assist in getting items made, make sure that you communicate to them the sizes, etc. that are required. This is important so that you don’t get items that you cannot distribute.
3. Communication – communication between volunteers and the organization is vital because that ensures everyone knows what is going on. If needs change spending out emails, etc. quickly is a good way to let everyone know about these changes.
4. Accepting items – figure out the method that you will accept the donations, so that everyone knows how it is going to be handled. If you are sending out communications that say “Drop Off’ make sure that you are going to be accepting people dropping off things. If you are not allowing people to drop-off items, make sure that is clearly communicated. Recently I received an email from a charity that I was working with that said, “Schedule a drop-off time” and it turned out that you were to box everything up, weigh it, measure the box and send that information and they would then get a courier to pick up the box. Not everyone has a schedule that allows for waiting around for a courier to pick up the box. This should have been one of the options not the only option.
5. General – making sure that everyone feels part of the team is very important because that is how you will continue to get others willing to help. It is amazing how a crafting community can come together to assist a charity if they will like they are part of it.

These are just a few of things that I have learned while dealing with charities and especially helping make items for different organization. It doesn’t matter what the charity is collecting be it funds or items understanding the importance of volunteers is key.

I understand working with charities can be difficult especially during these economic challenges. Some of what I have learned is also from obtaining my Fundraising Certificate and being able to assist charities is something that I would love to do more of.

 

Crafting for charity

I have been able to use some of my crafting skills to help a few different organizations in the past and have enjoyed most of the experiences.

Here is some of what I have done:

• Lapghans for veterans
• Toques for children started kindergarten
• Preemie hats and booties
• Knit items for children for a low income community Christmas campaign
• Baby hats for a hospital
• Baby afghans for a hospital

Of course each different organization has their different needs and wants. It has been interesting over the last 20 years how the demands have changed. In some cases the demands keep growing and then in other areas the demand seems to disappear. I am looking at some of the items that I did in the past and still think there is a need but there is no outlet for these items.

A toque in progress

Toques for children starting kindergarten was a program in my neighbourhood and I enjoyed doing this at first. The idea was that I would help them by making hats and mittens or even just hats for children that were in the community who may not have that winter hat. It was a lot of fun because I found a pattern that I enjoyed working on and I could make hats easily. The project then became something that I didn’t enjoy when I would get a phone call asking for 30 hats within two weeks. Of course I normally had a few hats finished between the times I dropped them off but trying to get 30 hats done in 14 days or less was a challenge. The other thing about this program was after making hats, and having friends also make hats, we didn’t see any of the hats within the community. Our neighbourhood isn’t very large in size but it is large in population but you think we would have seem a few of the hats. I continued with this program for a while as I wanted to help the children in the community but after getting calls a couple of times for a large number of hats within a short period I decided it was time to find something else that I enjoyed doing.

Small sweater for a little boy

The knit items for the Christmas campaign was interesting to work on because we could make anything from baby hats to kids sweaters because all of those items were needed. This meant that there was a group of us that worked on this project and we could make what we wanted and there wasn’t a demand for a specific item most of the time. Again this program changed when there was a staffing change where the campaign was managed and they started to want specific items but didn’t provide the list until near the time when the items were needed. Of course, most of us had been working throughout the year to make things we enjoyed making and the charity didn’t want what was available. I then decided it was time to stop helping them as well as it was difficult to meet their needs as well.

Lapghan for veterans

Lapghans for veterans was a project that I took on myself and I did it for a few years. I was working on making some smaller afghans around 36” x 46” which could be used in a wheelchair. This was a project that I really enjoyed because it meant that I was helping some veterans that had helped Canada in the past. I loved this project but my interests changed and I wasn’t able to manage to keep up with the making of lapghans. I may go back to this in the future but it will be a different method of making the lapghans. I was making granny squares for these afghans and it was the joining them together that got something that I wasn’t interested in doing.

Preemie hats and booties was a project that I did through Guardian Drugs as they collected the hats and booties and they were given to various hospitals. Preemies when they were born had a hat and booties to help keep them warm and I loved this program as these items were quick to make. The program disappeared when Guardian Drug was bought out so the outlet was no longer available.

Baby hats ready to go to hospital

The two items that I am still doing are baby hats and baby afghans for a hospital. I have found a hospital that wants and needs both of these and they have given me the freedom with the hats and afghans. I asked them what colours they wanted and they replied “any colour you want to make”. I asked what size hats and afghans and they again replied “whatever you want to make”. Having this freedom of colour and size makes it so much more interesting to work on. I have been having fun with this for around 4 years now and this year will be the first time that I will be taking a bunch of afghans to them. Hats have been delivered thanks to a friend a few times a year to the hospital and I know that they really appreciate what they get and when they get them. With this project I am going to try and find out what there needs are so that maybe I will be able to better help meet their needs in the future.

Baby afghan ready for hospital

Crafting for charity can be very rewarding when you are doing something that you enjoy doing. I enjoy spending some of my evenings crafting and now I have an outlet for some of my projects. My interests may change again and I will then have to figure out another charity what could use what I do. Until then I am going to continue to make the hats and afghans for the hospital and enjoy that as I know people that have received a hat appreciated it.