Knit For A Cause, the charity knitting and crocheting group that meets at the Verona Public Library, sent four boxes of home-made goods to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation last week.
The group filled four boxes with 48 winter hats, 16 sweaters, 16 blankets, eight scarves and 29 hat and mitten sets, all made by crafters in Verona. The work began in May, and benefited a South Dakota reservation that is home to 40,000 members of Oglala Sioux tribe who live in dire poverty. Diane Kuzma, a Knit For A Cause member and a former secretary at Verona High School, had been making hats, sweaters and more for the Friends Of Pine Ridge Reservation (FoPRR) for years and had encouraged the group to support them too. Before its work for Pine Ridge, Knit For A Cause had made chemo caps for patients at Saint Barnabas Medical Center.
For the next few months, Knit For A Cause will be dedicating its crafting to Oasis, a shelter for women and children in Paterson. The shelter needs hats, scarves, mittens and more. Anyone who wants to contribute can join Knit For A Cause on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. in the library’s temporary home at the Verona Community Center Annex. There will be no meeting on November 15, 22 or 29 because the library will be moving back to its historic building in the center of town; Knit For A Cause will meet at the original library after it reopens.
If you can’t make the meetings in person, you can pick up some of the yarn that has been donated to the group at the library and knit or crochet at home. There are many free patterns for all the items that Oasis needs on Ravelry.com.
If you have yarn to donate, please hold off until Knit For A Cause reconvenes in the original library on December 6. Knit For A Cause can also use donations of knitting needles and crochet hooks. For more information, contact Catherine Adair Williams, assistant library director, at 973-857-4848.
