“It’s so cozy.”
Pint-sized 5-year-old Emily summed up a whole year-long effort by several County employees and community volunteers with those three touching words.Emily had just picked out her handmade blanket from the pile of more than 400 on the table at the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency’s Escondido Child Welfare Services office. “A Little Bit of Comfort” is an all-volunteer movement to provide knitted, crocheted and quilted blankets to San Diego County foster children.
“I’m going to take it home and I’m going to wrap it around my body,” said Emily. She finally settled on a purple blanket – her favorite color.
“It’s a community sharing thing,” explained Chris Bodle, the County employee who started and spearheads the effort. “We have a lot of community volunteers and County employees who volunteer their own time. Everybody just joins in together and it’s very heartwarming. People care about children they’ll never see.”
The program began four years ago and the volunteers – ranging in age from 7 to 94 – have made more than 1,200 blankets so far.
“We have three girls ages 7, 10 and 11 who make little hats for children in hospitals,” said Bodle. “It’s healthy for kids and encouraging for them to get involved.”
The group also makes scarves and other assorted knitted items. It’s run entirely on donated yarn from the public. Sometimes its yarn people buy specifically to donate or it could be left over from projects of their own. “People just kindly offer it to us to use,” said Bodle.
As word continues to spread about the effort, more women come in to volunteer their time – or even drop off finished blankets for the cause. On Monday, Bodle received a donation of 10 blankets that were originally knit for troops in Iraq (they aren’t sending them because the troops will be coming home shortly), another four blankets from one individual and 25 scarves on the way from yet another generous donor.
As the number of blankets and donations has increased, so has the reach of the program. Tomorrow in Oceanside there will be a second blanket donation event and the volunteers are even sending blankets to foster youth in other parts of the County.
As for the future, the women plan on continuing to knit and crochet all year so foster children receive this one special personal belonging they can take with them the rest of their life. And you’ve heard the term “pay it forward.” Well, Emily was ready to do just that.
“I want to learn to knit,” she said. Even when her social worker explained that knitting needles were sharp and she might want to wait until she was older, Emily was persistent. “What about short ones?” she said. “Can we do short ones? Short ones for kids?”
