Forums
Chat with our fellow knitters in different rooms with different topics. You can also start a new topic by registering yourself inside our forum.
Singing up is absolutely FREE!!!
sponsor2
Why should you Volunteer With Us?
VOLUNTEERING MAKES YOU HAPPY AND ADDS MEANING AND PURPOSE TO YOUR LIFE
Did you know that time and time again researchers have found that people who volunteer and give are much happier then those that don’t?
According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, a huge study of 30,000 American households, those who gave money to a charitable organisation in the year 2000 were 43% more likely to say they were “very happy” with their lives than were those who had not given. Likewise, those who did volunteer work were 42% more likely to consider themselves very happy than those who did none.
According to the survey, whatever the cause, those who gave were happier by far than those who did not. Studies have found that those who give are also less inclined to feel sad or depressed than those who did not give.
Mr. Brooks, a Syracuse University Professor and the author of Who Really Cares—America’s Charity Divide: Who Gives, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters (Basic Books, 2006), the gap between the levels of happiness of those who give and those who do not is not simply explained by personal characteristics like income or religious belief.
By way of example, he introduces us to two people identical in every particular: income, faith, age, education, politics, gender, etc. One of them gives money and time (through volunteer work), while the other does not give either.
As a result of giving, the first person will be, on average, 11 percentage points more likely to be very happy than the second.
Another interesting happiness research from International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) concludes that a person’s happiness is determined by three components: Genetics, Environment, and Intentional Activities.
The first two, are products of DNA, parenting, and the environment of childhood.
These two factors account for about 60% of a person’s ability to be happy.The third factor, intentional activities, are those things a person chooses to do. These account for about 40% of a person’s happiness.
Research studies focusing on this area identifies committing acts of kindness, and expressing gratitude and optimism as possible happiness enhancing activities.
Another interesting aspect of this research, when using these acts of kindness intentionally to increase one’s chances of being happy is – happiness increased when people intentionally committed several varied acts of kindness each week.
It was found that performing A variety of kindness acts resulted in higher levels of happiness, even one month after the study completed!
In her book, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want (New York, Penguin Press, 2008), researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D. found that performing acts of kindness toward others pays big returns for the person initiating the kindness.
Dr. Lyubomirsky’s studies on kindness found that test subject’s happiness increased when they intentionally committed several acts of kindness each week.
Happiness is a choice. You reap what you sow. Get involved in volunteering and spread some joy in this world and you’ll find that the person who benefits the most from your kind deeds is you!
MAKE NEW FRIENDS
Through knitting for the needy you can gather a group of volunteer knitters around you and work together for a good cause. Recconect with your community. Spend time in nursing homes or retirement villages with the people there. Soak up some of our elders wisdom and life experience and bridge that generational gap!
HELP PUT AN END TO ELDERLY SOCIAL ISOLATION
Ageing can often lead to social isolation as a result of increased frailty, lack of mobility, and the loss of friends and family. To many of our elders are experiencing depression as a result and don’t know what to do about it.
It is therefore vital to foster friendships between the older generation and younger Australians, thereby helping to broaden their day to day activities, reduce loneliness and generally improve their overall quality of life. Lets put an end to elderly isolation and reach out a hand to them.
They have so much to teach us and a whole lifetime full of interesting stories to tell. There is to great a divide between our youth and our elders in this country. Be a part of the solution and join our family of volunteers.
WHY KNITTING FOR THE NEEDY?
SIMPLE IDEA WITH MULTIPLE BENIFITS
The most incredible thing about knitting for the needy is that it’s a very simple idea but has a range of benefits. While you are getting together with people in a nursing home or a retirement village to knit your providing multiple benefits.
1. Your reconnecting with your elders and doing your part to end social isolation.
2. Your giving the knitters a sense of purpose and meaning. They are now able to contribute something of value and get the ‘helpers high’ from doing volunteer work with you.
3. Your providing a valuable service for the homeless community by giving them knitted goods to keep them warm throughout winter.
We can’t do it without you!
We can only reach our goal of keeping all 100,000+ homeless Aussies warm each winter if we have the support of volunteers. If you can spare 1 – 2 hours per week you can get involved today.
We need proactive committed volunteers to set up and manage ‘Knitting for the Needy’ groups in their local areas.
Who can volunteer? Anyone! (Even if you can’t knit)
Here is how it works.
If You Are An Individual Wanting To Organize A Local Group
Contact a local aged care facility or retirement village to see if they might want to get involved in the program. Ask if they have residents there who they think would like to participate. You will find that they will almost always be very receptive to the idea.
When you do call, (or drop by) you’ll usually need to chat to director of nursing or the diversional therapist (the person who organizes activities in the nursing homes) or if it is a retirement village you can usually chat to the residents one to one to see if they might be interested.
Basically you just say that you’d like to come in and do some volunteer work for them for 1 morning or afternoon per week and explain how ‘knitting for the needy’ works. Eg: You’d like to start a knitting group making scarves, beanies and blankets for the homeless while also spending some quality time with the knitters.
Believe me; most of them will jump at the chance to have such a proactive volunteer helping them out.
Some nursing homes will bring you in for a quick interview but most of them will just get you to fill in some volunteer forms on your first day and you can get down to the fun part. Many nursing homes will want to do a simple criminal record check on you before or soon after you start but some places will not worry about this step.
You will become a volunteer of that nursing home directly. You’re not through any agency or registered charity. It’s just between you and the facility. It’s all yours!
If You Are A Diversional Therapist, Director Of An Aged Care Facility Or Part Of A Community of Knitters
You already have a head start!
You can organize a group yourself within your community or facility. Simply ask around and get a commitment from all those interested in participating. For diversional therapists or Nursing Directors you can simply slot the knitting into the weekly activity schedule or suggest to the knitters that they take part and form their own group aside from the group activities. Also goods from craft shows can be donated to us.
If you feel that you need help setting up your group or have any questions please contact us.
It’s that simple to get started!
This is a very simple and straight forward model. If you’re an individual volunteer, while you have them on the phone, commit to a time and frequency that suits you and the aged care facility. Once you have your regular day and time you are ready to go. If you’re organizing the group within a nursing home or retirement village the management will usually help get the people together on the day of your knitting group.
Volunteer groups usually spend one afternoon (1 – 2 hours) a week together. Groups can be anywhere from 1 to 20 people and in some cases more.
Most people in the program continue knitting throughout the week by themselves or with friends as well as doing the group session once a week.
Your group will need knitting needles, wool and patterns (or knowledge of how to knit a pattern) to get started. Most of our volunteers supply this themselves as part of their gift to their knitting group. You may find that the facility you’re volunteering at already has these things or the individual knitters may already have their own. The facility also may have enough in their budget to buy the materials or at least part of it.
Alternatively you can do a fundraiser or find a local sponsor who might pay for the materials. It’s a wonderful cause and you’ll find people are very warm to the idea.
If you are buying materials yourself from a different place be sure to ask for a wholesale rate or a charity discount. You can give them the website address as proof of what your doing.
If you can’t get the materials you need to get started, Mellissa (the founder of ‘knitting for the needy’) may be able to help supply what you need as she sometimes gets donations. Contact Mellissa if you need help.
If you have any donations of knitting supplies to contribute to our volunteers it would be very greatly appreciated.
It’s lovely if you can make the meetings as enjoyable, fun and welcoming as possible. It’s always nice to knit over a cup of tea and biscuits while you’re having a good chat. Some nursing homes or elderly facilities will provide this or maybe you could take turns with them at bringing something in. It’s not a must but it’s a nice touch.
You can do the knitting during afternoon or morning tea and the home will often be happy to provide something for you. I always take in a little bag of chocolate to the places that don’t serve us tea and biccys. Again this is not a must but i enjoy giving little treats!
Every group is different. I want to stress that it doesn’t matter how fast or slow you knit or how much you produce as long as you’re producing something and you’re all having a good time. Volunteering and spending time with the elderly is just as valuable a service as producing the warm goodies for the homeless so please don’t despair if things take a while to get going.
Some days some people won’t feel like knitting and other days you might come in and find they have knitted great amounts since you last saw them. Some times you’ll lose a person from the group and sometimes you’ll get new people as people in nursing homes leave and new people arrive.
You might have 8 people one week and only 2 the next depending on peoples health and mood. Some people just go in to visit one knitter every week and that’s fine too. Some groups produce bags and bags of knitting and some produce very just a small amount for the year. Again I say – It doesn’t matter!
Spending time with the elderly is a wonderful service in itself so just relax and enjoy knitting for the needy and do what you can.
Most people in your group also continue knitting throughout the week by themselves or with friends as well as doing the group session once a week so they may not do much in the group session but may have a lot to show you when you come back next.
We usually focus on making scarves beanies and blankets (as they are easy) but people can make what ever they like and some people get very creative and make toys, jumpers, socks and mittens. Scarves are very easy to do for people who are either novice knitters, very frail or have dementia.
Even if you can’t knit you can still organize and run a group. You will find that people will be more than happy to teach you (as they did for me)
Another really special touch is to try to get a thank you letter from the organisation you donate their goods too. In this way they get very positive feedback and feel really great about themselves. Most of the knitters really cherish these thank you cards or letters and you will often see them hung up in their rooms. If you cannot obtain a thank you card from the organisation you can write one yourself!
As you produce your warm goods for winter you can do one of 2 things.
You can send them to Mellissa to distribute for you
I will hold on to them until it starts to get cold (usually april/may)at the start of winter and will then distribute them to our wonderful homeless charities who put them directly in the hands of the needy.
Or
Distribute them yourself
If you’d like to distribute them yourself you certainly can and this can be a most rewarding and fulfilling activity. You can find a local charitable organization who works with the homeless and take them in or post to them.
Please contact them first to find out if they need them and are able to give them directly to those in need . Please make sure they’re not going to sell them. Only give to places that can freely give your wonderful work directly to those who need them!
I find its better to hold onto it all until winter comes around. You’ll find then a lot of organisations have winter clothing appeals on. Also this way the items get moved on right away instead of tucked away in a cupboard and forgotten about. I like to add labels to all the knitting I donate. I pin a little label or attach a little gift card to each item that says “knitted with love by knitting for the needy” or “knitted with love by “persons name who actually knitted it” and I include the url of this website on the back or the bottom. If you can do this its wonderful. Everything sent to me to distribute will be labelled.
Once your up and running stay connected with us online! Your part of the family now so introduce yourself and your group members on the forums. Share ideas and experiences. Share patterns and ideas for fundraisers etc. Let us see photo’s of your wonderful work.
Let us know what your doing out there doing so that we can keep track of our goal of keeping all 100,000+ homeless Australians warm each winter.
Also contact mellissa to sign up to our newsletter and stay in touch incase we have wool donations or great discounts to tell you about as well as news, get togethers and announcements.
Go to the new volunteers forum and check it out now. Ask questions, learn from other volunteers experiences, share ideas and just get to know eachother. Its fun!