pattern: Basic Beanie from Sweet Kiwi Crochet
yarn: I Love This Yarn (Hobby Lobby) in lightest grey; 135 yards (about 1/3 a skein)
hook: size I-9 / 5.5 mm
This morning on College Game Day (we watch it every Saturday during football season), a few of the USC players were sharing their time in Haiti. Back in May, the entire USC football team flew to Haiti for a week to build houses and work with the folks affected by the hurricane.
Listening to those players talk I was reminded of why I do what I do. Phrases like, "there is a smell to that kind of poverty," and "I will never be the same, my life was altered because of this experience" resonate deep down for me.
When I was 14 I spent 2 months sleeping on the floor. Not because I was poor (we were very well off, in fact) but because I went on a house-building trip to Mexico for a week. Not only was I blown away at what I saw while I was there, I came home to a house stuffed full of things and just couldn't handle it.
I slept on my bedroom floor for a week, next to my super comfortable bed, because I couldn't deal with the fact that I had so much when so many people had so little. I packed up 3/4 of my clothes and had my mom help me mail them to the organization we built the house with, so the folks I had met could have some clothes. And I started to look at my life not in terms of what I could get, but what I could give.
That first trip marked me in a way I know the trip to Haiti has marked those USC football players. Since I was 14 I've gone to Mexico three more times and the Dominican Republic twice, all to build houses and bond with folks who are not so different than I am. It's why I make hats, and then give them away. It's why to this day I don't own a hat that I've made - I always intend to keep one but then someone will comment on how they like it or I'll see someone who looks cold and the hat will come off. It's why I'm making a hat a day in September - because there are children who deserve to go to school who cannot for whatever reason, and this is one small way I can help, I can make a difference.
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I'm crocheting a hat a day for Hat-tember 2012! Each hat will be donated to the Chicago Food Pantry's annual holiday kid's party, and I'm attempting to raise $750 for Pencils Of Promise at the same time!
Help me reach $750 this month by sponsoring this hat for just $25 - the cost of sending a child to school for a full year through Pencils Of Promise!
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