Contest Results!

FINALLY I sat down today and drew names for our contest. Actually, my daughter's best friend Mary drew the names and we have 7 winners! As you may remember, our contest actually ended in the beginning of April - sorry for the delay! Here are our winners, in no particular order:

- Lynn in GA
- Linda in CT
- Lorraine in SC
- Nancy K
- Sweezer
- Alicia (AmGoth) in NJ

Congratulations! We have everything from yarn to patterns to books to share and I will be contacting the people who are donating our prizes over the next few days.

This is what I need from the winners: email me with your full name, home (shipping) address, your email address, and a preference for crochet or knitting in case you get a pattern. I need this info asap so we can get the prizes to you! In most cases I have your address, but email me this info just in case. (knitsforneeds@gmail.com)

Thank you for participating and for continuing to do all you do to help people in need. That is what Knits For Needs is all about! Thank you also to the people who are donating prizes - your support of our organization is so appreciated.

Also, check out our new fan page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Knits-For-Needs/225048020841259 Our old FB group will be archived soon and all members will be lost, so join us on this new one!

New Donation

Hello!! Yes, I am still alive... LIFE getting in the way of KFN right now, but thanks for keeping it going, and I will get more on the ball asap. Contest results are belated, but upcoming.

Thank you to Linda in CT for donating 1 blanket, 5 scarves, 6 hats, and a monetary donation to help with shipping!

Go KFN!! Have a wonderful weekend!

New Donations

Hello! It has been awhile since I updated the blog. I've been super busy with work and finally have a chance to catch everyone up on the goings-on of KFN!

We have many new donations to thank people for:

- Alicia and her mother: 38 hats, 3 blankets, 1 sweater, and 1 scarf
- quirkyvirgo: 16 blanket squares
-Lorraine in SC: 4 hats, 2 scarves, and a monetary donation
-Nancy: 8 hats, 3 scarves
- Karen in GA: 3 hats, 1 shawl, and 3 scarves

Thank you very much for all you do for people in need!! Remember, not all of these items come directly to us in Atlanta. Some of the items are ones that our members have donated to places. If you are knitting and/or crocheting and donating some of your things, let us know!!

Our current count for 2011 is: 269! Keep knitting/crocheting!!

I plan to finalize our contest winners today, so keep posted, and thanks to everyone who entered!

Knits For Needs in Action

First of all, many thanks to the following people:

Mary in GA (my mom): monetary donation (paid for all of the following shipments!)
Lynn in GA: 7 blankets, 2 blanket squares, 14 hats, 1 cowl, and 2 scarves (wow!)
Myra in IL: 12 hats, 2 scarves, 1 cute purse

Thank you all so much for your support and contributions!!! Our count of donated items is up to 183 for this year so far. Onward to 1,500!

Yesterday I spent hours and hours going through all of our things, separating them, determining where they were going, documenting, etc. I've been behind on this because, as many of you know, I just started working full-time as a pre-k teacher. I've been a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, so, as you can imagine, this has been quite the adjustment for the whole family! It feels great to have finally mailed and delivered some items out, and I'm excited to share this news with you all. Here is what I shipped/delivered yesterday:

20 prayer squares to CT
23 scarves/cowls/shawls to the rape crisis center in MD
12 hats, 1 purse, 6 pairs of socks, and 10 scarves to Timothy's Cupboard in GA
4 lap blankets to my grandmother's nursing home in GA
20 squares to Janet in KY, who collects them and turns them into blankets
(about) 50 baby items to Northside Hospital's preemies in GA (forgot to count them before I boxed them up!)

Sorry for the lack of pictures.. I left my camera at school!

For more information about Knits For Needs, please join us on the following sites:
Ravelry: Knits For Needs
Twitter: @knitsforneeds
Facebook: Knits For Needs

Also, our contest is still going strong. We have about 30 people who have entered and achieved many entries into the drawing, either by tweeting about the contest, writing about us on their blog, or donating knit/crocheted items or monetary donations. The contest ends April 1 - enter today!

Thanks again for supporting Knits For Needs. I'm excited and proud of our growth and look forward to providing more and more people with hand-knit/crocheted items made with love. Thank you for volunteering your time and skills to help those in need!

KFN in the News

I'm excited to report that we have a newspaper article written about us! Check it out! For the record, I did not use the word "needy" in that interview. She used that word that I can't stand. Also, she ended up focusing more on me than the charity as a whole, which I'm not crazy about. But, nonetheless, I'm excited about the fact that we were featured in the paper!

Also, there is more info about us on this blog: http://www.ewespecial.blogspot.com/

The word is getting out about KFN.. and you know what that means: we're getting bigger and able to help even more people! I love it!

Coming Together For People In Need

Have I mentioned how I love to find things in our PO Box before? Ok, so I have. Well, won't hurt to say it again! I LOVE finding things in our box!!! Picture me sitting here with a huge smile on my face :) Other than being up at 6am on a Sunday (I can't sleep in!), I am a super happy camper.

Many thanks to Alicia in New Jersey and her mother, Lucila, for creating and donating 26 hats! Here is what Alicia said on Ravelry: "Just mailed 8 hats out to The Ships Project and 18 hats to Operation Beanies for Service Members for a total of 26 hats :) I only made 14 of the hats, my mom made the other 12." You guys rock.

Thank you also to Bonnie, also in New Jersey, and Myra in Connecticut for sending in 5 hats each.

And, last but not least, thanks to Linda, also in CT, for sending in 3 scarves, 5 hats, and a monetary donation.

Our current count for this year is 116. Knits For Needs continues to grow, which means we are helping more people! Now I just need to get on the ball and send some things out... expect a blog post about that coming up.

Our contest is going strong. Lots of people have several entries into the drawing for prizes, through either tweeting about the contest or sending things in. And one person has 5 entries for writing a blog post about us! The contest ends April 1st, so get those things in and spread the word.

I heart KFN! Happy Sunday!

Contest Time!

Another contest, shall we? I think we'll do this contest similar to the last one, only this time we'll be collecting funds as well. We need to raise about $400 more in order to register as a 501(c)3 (yea!!) and this is exciting news for us all! I can't wait to take this awesome charity to the next level and see it grow even bigger. The bigger we are, the more people we can clothe with warm goodies knit/crocheted from the heart, and that it what we are all about here at Knits For Needs.

So, here are the contest details:

1) If you donate a knit/crocheted item to KFN, you will get an entry into a drawing for prizes. For every 5 items, you'll get one more entry. ie: if you donate 22 items, you'll get 5 entries.. 1 for the first item, 1 more for each multiple of 5 more. (Does this make sense? :))

2) For every $5 you donate, you'll get one entry into the drawing.

3) For every tweet about @knitsforneeds 's contest, you get one more entry (please use hashtag #charityknittingcontest, post a link to this blog post, and address @knitsforneeds so I see the tweet).

4) Write about Knits For Needs and our contest on your blog and you'll get 5 entries. Make sure I see the post.

5) Contest runs from February 1, 2011 - April 1, 2011.

I am drumming up some prizes.. more info to come. If you can donate a prize for our contest, PLEASE do! Keep it with you (do not mail it in), email me that you can donate, and I'll let you know the winner when the contest is over.

HAVE FUN! And remember, this is ALL about helping other through our work. 100% of all items donated go to people in need, and 100% of all monetary donations will go to registration of our charity and will be used for shipping costs.

Thanks in advance to all who participate!!! Game on!!

Knits For Needs
PO Box 551
Woodstock, GA 30188

knitsforneeds@gmail.com

You're Knittin'!

Big thanks to Cheryl in Texas for sending in 2 shawls, 1 cowl, 1 pair of socks, 1 hat, 2 scarves, and a monetary donation! You were quite varied in your knitting preferences... we appreciate that :)

Thanks also to Linda in CT for donating 7 scarves and 7 hats, as well as a monetary donation.

And thank you to Lori in SC who sent in 5 hats to our donation site for the homeless veterans project (read more about that in our group on Ravelry.com).

We appreciate all of you so much!

More to come about an upcoming contest... any ideas about the contest? Can you donate a prize or two? Email me! knitsforneeds@gmail.com

Registering Knits For Needs

I've been looking into registering our charity as a 501(c)3 non-profit, which has been my goal for some time. This would get us our tax exempt status and qualify us as a legitimate non-profit organization. This is wonderful and exciting news, but comes with a price. It looks like it will be right around $1,000 for us to do this, which means we need more funds. After we raise these funds and register, the only other funds we'd need to upkeep would be our shipping funds, which, right now, run about $150/year, which isn't much. However, if we keep growing, this figure will go up as we will be making further shipments, but we are looking into getting more donation sites and hand-delivering more items, which cuts down on the cost of shipping.

I am excited about the direction Knits For Needs is going in, and I think registering as a 501 (c)3 non-profit will further our growth. If you would like to contribute monetarily to our organization, please use the "donate" button on our blog or send funds to: Knits For Needs, PO Box 551, Woodstock, Ga 30188. We would greatly appreciate any and all funds we receive, and thank you so much to the people who have already donated.

As always, keep sending in your knit/crocheted items! This is an ongoing project for us... we collect items throughout the year and donate to people in need throughout the year as well, although the winter months are our busiest times, as far as shipments go. Thank you for your support!

What an Awesome 2010 for KFN!

First of all, big thanks to Josephine in PA for sending in 6 hats. Her daughter sent in Josephine's hats with a wonderful note saying Josephine is a 90-year-old open-heart surgery patient who is finding her knitting and giving to others great therapy. You're awesome, Josephine!! Thanks!

Also, I wanted to mention a note I received from Lisa at Threads Of Compassion, the organization that donated our scarves to a rape crisis center. Lisa says, "Dear Meridith and Knits For Needs: Thank you so much for your scarf donation in November to Threads of Compassion. Because of your donation, we were able to collect a total of 238 scarves in 2010! Your scarves have made a difference! Thank you so much for helping to make Threads of Compassion a success in our 2010 year!" I love hearing things like this!

We had a great 2010 here at Knits for Needs! We collected a whopping 1,070 items for people in need! I still have some things I need to send out this winter. Way to go guys! I am so proud of our group!

So far this year, 2011, we have collected/donated 40 items, thanks to Alicia, who frequents our Ravelry group. You and your mother, who also donated a lot of items, are awesome Alicia... it is amazing how much you give to people in need. Proud to be working with you!

I think our goal for 2011, since we went way over our goal of 900 for last year, should be 1,500 collected/donated by the end of the year. What do you think? I think we can do it! We are really growing and I'm still in the process of getting our charity registered, which will help a lot.

So... onward to 1,500!!!