Friday Service Number One

The first Friday service to take place during this FBE challenge was February 25th. We'd been in communication with Olin's Knitting Club for a while hoping to schedule something with them, and since their project was pretty easy, it wasn't too difficult to get it ready by the first Friday we were officially in "Change the World" mode. Knitting Club's project is knitting and crocheting six inch squares that will eventually be combined to make blankets that will be donated either to a homeless shelter in Boston or a battered women shelter. This project is a good one because it doesn't require to much of a time commitment and it shapes the path that people need to follow while shrinking the change at the same time. It is very clear what people are supposed to be doing and since they only have to think about making one square, they aren't overwhelmed by the idea of making a whole blanket.
I was the only member of our team who could make it to this particular Friday activity (Jordyn was at EDiscovery, Brendan was trying to get people to go to the Walker School, and Torie was getting trained to work a suicide prevention hotline) so I headed to East Hall at 3 to help carry giant boxes of knitting supplies to the West Hall 1 lounge.
There were only 4 or 5 people at first, but soon more and more people started showing up. We turned on a Cinderella movie and soon there was a frenzy of knitting and crocheting. Knitting Club already had enough squares to make one or two blankets, so Larissa started crocheting them together while most of the other people started knitting or crocheting more squares.
For most of the two hours we had close to 15 people knitting or crocheting which, though still not as many participants as we'd eventually like to have, is quite a bit more than most Fridays this semester. It was really great to see people come in and actually sit down and start knitting. Breauna even tried to start a square even though she's never knit before and Larissa got Avery to try crocheting for a while (making him the only boy who came to the activity). I think one of the reasons we had such a good turn out for this week compared to past weeks was making sure people knew about it. Our study break the Tuesday before really put service on people's minds. We also had Knitting Club send out a carpe and we put signs up on Friday in the dorms and the dining hall reminding people about service time.
People were having such a good time that after the first movie ended at 5 (when service time ends) we put in a second movie and 6 or 7 people stayed to keep knitting. I started a square at the beginning of the activity but since I haven't knit anything in years I didn't finish it until six, but I had a great time and I was very proud of my little blue square when I was done with it. I was so happy to have so many people come to this activity, I can't wait to see what will happen in the weeks to come. In the meantime, I'm going to practice my knitting skills.