By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
Attention local knitters and crocheters: St. Mark’s Lutheran Church is looking for volunteers to make hats and mittens for refugee children. St. Mark’s is partnering with other churches and the Auxiliary to the Onondaga County Health Department to bring winter gear to more than 1,000 children this winter.
Mary Anderson, a nurse in the health department’s tuberculosis clinic, said the program has been in place for three years. A grant from Thrivent Financial allows Anderson to buy yarn for volunteers to knit, crochet or loom-knit mittens and hats.
“We screen all incoming refugees that come into Syracuse,” Anderson said. “In the dead of winter, people would come in with no winter clothing, socks and flippy-floppies on their feet.”
Anderson said her mother began knitting winter clothing items at Zion Lutheran Church in Gasport (near Buffalo), and the project grew. Other partners in the project include St. Stephen’s Church in Oswego and Menorah Park in Syracuse.
“Thrivent’s been giving us the yarn — basically all I want,” she said. “I just need people to make them.”
Anderson said the county health department served about 1,400 refugees in the last federal budget year, and nearly two-thirds of those refugees are children.
“Refugees have been coming since the Vietnamese came after the war,” she said. “It’s just becoming larger and larger. Syracuse takes the most refugees in New York state.”
Supplying refugees with proper winter gear prevents frostbite, according to Anderson. She said the program has provided hundreds of hats and mittens to refugee children.
“I see people wearing them when I drive or when I do home visits,” she said. “I guess that’s the best ‘thank you’ there is.”
Knitters who would like to participate can contact Mary Anderson at 635-5171.
If you’re not the crafty type, don’t fret — Anderson said the program also accepts purchased donations, and the Onondaga County Health Department is looking for volunteers. Contact Deborah Torrick at 435-3777 for more information.
