Author: Jessica

It was so exciting to receive over 30 scarves from family members of YWCA staff!

They came from people in Wisconsin and Oklahoma City.

What a great contribution to this project! It’s so cool that we really can partner with people all over the place.

You don’t have to live right here in Oklahoma to participate. Through various connections and shipping services anyone can join us in offering comfort to survivors!

During the first two years that Threads OKC has been happening we’ve gotten a lot of use out of a couple of nice patterns. The variety of colors and textures has been really cool to see as completed scarves have been donated.

For this month, I thought it would fun to select a pattern for us to all work on together. Lion Brand Yarn has a pattern online that looks neat to try. You can find it here. 

I think it will be fun to see finished scarves in the coming months that are made with the same pattern, yet turn out different based on the yarn selection.

We can even share our finished products on the Facebook page so that people who can’t attend the monthly work day can see how it’s going.

We have planned work days for the first part of 2012.

Everyone is welcome to join us, whether you are just learning to knit or crochet, or you’re very experienced.

In addition to working on making scarves we also take time to package completed ones.

Here are the dates, please mark you calendar and join us:

January 22

February 12

March 4

April 1

May 6

June 3

We’ll be in room A101 at the Memorial Road church of Christ in Edmond.

We are scheduled to have a booth at a concert tonight on campus at Oklahoma Christian University.

The concert was planned with the hope that it will raise awareness for four campus groups – Rwandans4Water, Wishing Well, Threads of Compassion and OC Modern Abolitionists – as well as two off-campus efforts – Soles for Souls and the YWCA Rape Crisis Center.

The location has been changed to inside the student center.

More information is available in the OC student newspaper.

In July I was contacted by a lady in Connecticut. She had questions about starting a Threads of Compassion chapter there.  I shared my experiences with her and hoped it all worked out.

I heard from her recently, they have started a new chapter there!  They have a great website and a facebook page. 

You can check them out at www.threadsnb.org

It so cool to be part of something that continues to grow and offer comfort to people at such difficult times.

September is Step Forward Day at Pepperdine University.

I’m excited to share that this year the Alumni Organization’s Waves of Service program is joining up again with Step Forward Day to give more people a chance to participate all around the country, and Threads of Compassion OKC is one of the projects.

So all you Waves out there: join us for this day of service. Not in the Oklahoma City area? No problem! We’re a virtual location, so you can join in wherever you are and just let Pepperdine know you’re participating. Once your scarf is done, you can send it to us for distribution.

Visit www.threadsokc.org for more information about how to get involved with Threads of Compassion.

Next month is Step Forward Day at Pepperdine University.

One of my favorite experiences as a Pepperdine Student was Step Forward Day,it was so fun to join with classmates on service projects around the community. I remember seeing dolphins swimming in the waves as we cleaned up trash at the beach one year.

It’s exciting to share that this year the Alumni Organization’s Waves of Service program is joining up again with Step Forward Day to give more people a chance to participate all around the country, and Threads of Compassion OKC is one of the projects.

More information is available online at http://www.pepperdine.edu/alumni/chapters/stepforward/sfd2011.htm

It was so cool to come back from vacation to a box of scarves! These beautiful scarves were sent in the mail.

I think it’s great that we have so many ways for people to be involved with Threads of Compassion OKC. Some come to our monthly work days and get to meet others while working together, while others can work at home and just send the scarves. Still others are close enough that they stop by my office with scarves from time to time. This really is a project that has a lot of flexibility!

I’m hopeful that we can continue to provide scarves throughout the summer, as the need continues to go on, even though our schedules may be changing a bit.

April 16th the OKC YWCA is hosting a 5 K to raise funds and awareness to help victims and prevent future sexual assaults.

There is a community fair happening at the same time and we have a booth!

If you’re available the morning of the 16th, please consider participating in this event. You can register online to walk or run, or to volunteer, or you can join me at our Threads of Compassion OKC booth.

The information about the event is online at the YWCA site.

Hope to see you there!  

At our work day this past Sunday we started talking about how fun it was to work together and someone asked what the schedule is for the future.

So, I went ahead and planned the rest of the year. 

Here are the 2011 Work Days. 

April 3rd

May 1st

June 5th

July 10th

August 7th

September 11th

October 2nd

November 6th

December 4th

We always meet in the Potters Room at the Memorial Road church of Christ in Edmond. It’s from 2-5, and it’s totally fine to come for some or all of the time.

Most of these are the first Sunday of the month, when that fell on or very near a holiday we switched to the 2nd Sunday of the month