Volunteers knitting thousands of scarves for needy

[Kadie]

Volunteers knitting thousands of scarves for needy
Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, December 18, 2010

St. Anthony Dining Room is getting ready for its gala Christmas meal this year one stitch at a time.

And that's taking a lot of stitches - thousands, actually, from around the world.

The goal is to gather 7,000 hand-knit scarves by Dec. 25, one for each of the 4,000 people expected in the venerable Tenderloin soup kitchen's line for the big holiday meal of honey-glazed ham and trimmings - and extras to hand out all around.

It's a tall order, and the whole idea was sparked by an offhand remark. But in the past few months, the campaign to get the scarves together has gone viral, and hand-knit bits of warmth are pouring in from as far away as Brazil.

So far, that has totaled 5,000 scarves. They pack the cupboards, desks and floor spaces of four rooms of the foundation across the street from its Golden Gate Avenue dining room - and so many are being laid at the entryway every day that sometimes the staff has trouble opening the door.

"It started out as just a little idea about six months ago, and then grew and grew and grew," said St. Anthony spokeswoman Francis Aviani. "This thing has really touched people and ricocheted into a most amazing, beautiful effort."


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/17/MNSA1GP0SH.DTL#ixzz18fRX8LzS

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I think the main effect of efforts like this is to give the knitters

a warm, fuzzy glow of accomplishment and perhaps self-congratulation. It's no doubt great for the destitute to get scarves and a hot meal, and I don't by any means intend to denigrate or discourage such things, but this is an infinitesimal drop in the great bucket of need. How much better it would be if each of those people spent a fraction of their knitting time putting pressure on politicians to start paying attention to our poor and maybe even developing programs that will lift a significant number of them out of poverty.

Edit: A lot of people have quite rightly pointed out that it is possible to do both this kind of giving and advocacy for the poor This is of course true, and it was a a gross oversight for me not to acknowledge that reality. I heartily applaud those who do both.

My real target, as I think about it, is those, typically conservatives of one stripe or another, who see no problem with the status quo, and who make small immediate gestures of charity, thereby thinking they have fulfilled their obligation to the people who are barely surviving in our cruel nation.

[Kadie]

2. Maybe they do.

How much better it would be if each of those people spent a fraction of their knitting time putting pressure on politicians to start paying attention to our poor and maybe even developing programs that will lift a significant number of them out of poverty.

:shrug:

[JoDog]

4. I do.

Thanks to the miracle of the BlueTooth, I knit and badger public officials at the same time. It's a great way to survive being put on hold.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Thanks for what you do.

My OP was directed at those who do only the direct-service "treatment of symptoms" without thinking about how to eliminate the causes of the malady.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. I certainly applaud those who do.

But for some reason, these stories always bring to mind an old, very conservative woman judge whom I knew, who got a lot of mileage out of her Christmas tree with the mittens she knit for distribution to the poor. This was about the only evidence I ever saw of compassion for the less fortunate in her, and it always got her a lot of publicity. Hers was an elected position, BTW.

[pipi_k]

3. This is the thing that depresses me most about this time of year...

For one day a year...or a couple of weeks, anyway...people give to others.

One day out of the year a family might have a really decent hot meal. People knit gloves and scarves and get all "Ho ho ho, peace on Earth".

Then the rest of the year it's back to the same old shit, generally.

Step over the homeless person on the street.

Turn a blind eye to a kid whose only good meal each day might be the one he gets in school.

Ignore someone else in need.


How many active wars have been marked by a day of cease-fire during Christmas...then the next day it's back to the killing.


One day a year we try to be decent to each other.


For me, it's heartbreaking... :(

[Missy Vixen]

7. I knit, I can dial a telephone, too.

It might be a "infitesimal drop in the great bucket of need", but it's a drop. Drops can add up to quite a lot, as you might know if you're living in Southern California right now. Those who sit back and complain about what they see as the paltry efforts of others are doing nothing more than releasing hot air into the atmosphere.

Our family puts our drops into that bucket daily, with phone calls, letters and the recurring donations to the local food bank we signed up for awhile back. I'd rather make some effort than no effort at all.