Um, I Was In Error

Never rely on hearsay.  I, of all people, should know that by now. 

Well, the hearsay evidence was good evidence...it was just outdated evidence.  Since the time I received that evidence, MANY MORE SCARVES came in. 

I got home from work yesterday, and there was a message on my voicemail, left at shortly after 9 a.m., from Karen of the OFA. She had read my blog entry, and was stifling a laugh whilst she gave me the real final number.  Is this your final answer, Karen?!

I am so stunned by this number that I hardly have the strength to write this, but you all deserve to know what an incredibly wonderful job you did. 

Are you sitting down? 

15,097 SCARVES

We just rock the house so totally hard.  I really, really, REALLY am stunned by this and I thank you all so very, very much.  As Karen says, "Finally, some good news out of Virginia." 

*******

I was ruminating: "What if we each sent in a dollar or two with each of our scarves?  We could totally start a Knitbloggers Red Scarf Scholarship."

That was just a little thinking out loud and a totally unauthorized aside. But kind of a cool thought, no?  The young women Gale and I met in New Hampshire told us about some of the most amazing things the OFA does for them.  It helps them with rent, helps them with utility costs if they have their own apartments, helps them obtain car loans, of course helps them with tuition.  The Foundation helps them, helps them, helps them.  And the OFA is one of those organizations that spends the bulk of its resources not on hefty administrative costs, but on fulfilling its mission. It's been rated 4 stars by charitynavigator. I'm a total fan.  Honestly.

**************

In chatting with Karen, who called me again after I got home from work, I heard her loud-and-clear thank yous.  The appreciation is warm and genuine. 

It was a veritable tsunami of knitting and crocheting love.  However, in the future, we, of necessity, must turn that tsunami of love into a more manageable wave.  There is a surplus of scarves still, which actually surpasses the number of the original goal, and they are being stored until next season.  The OFA located other social work agencies around the country and identified ones that were willing to take some of the surplus scarves, so that the desire of the knitter or crocheter that the scarves go to foster children was met.  They didn't want to just send them to other random charities -- they wanted to meet the mandate of the knitters and crocheters.  However, this effort came at great cost to them.  It took many days of labor and over $5,000 in expenses to package and ship the excess scarves.  They still have 3,500 left in storage to be used this fall or in Red Scarf 2008. 

So in order to make things more manageable, Red Scarf 2008 will be undergoing some changes.  The OFA will be posting their new guidelines hopefully in May.  They are working on a new website, and as soon as it is up and operational, Karen will call me and I will let you know about it. 

In order to keep the numbers at a more manageable level, the OFA will be asking knitters or crocheters to register on their new site, and commit to a number of scarves of their choosing, but each individual will be limited to not more than 10.  This is in order to allow more people to participate, while at the same time limiting the total number of scarves received to a reasonable one.

Another element of the new website will be a button for making a tax-deductible donation (completely voluntary) so that the OFA can include gift cards in the packages.  The students -- as any parent or grandparent or aunt or uncle will know already-- highly appreciate the gift cards to various eateries, bookstores, etc. 

I'm personally thinking about a donation in the following sense:  I know that several of the scarves I made last year were in the $40-$50 range each in cost for the yarn.  I will probably only make one scarf this year -- focusing on quality, not quantity -- and I can therefore put some money toward a sure-to-be-appreciated gift card or to help defray the shipping expenses to the OFA.   

The deadline will be much, much earlier this time.  We are looking at the packages arriving in their office between September 1-October 15, 2007.  This will allow them time to unpack, organize, catalog, repackage, and send out the packages -- again, without overwhelming their staff, their amazing volunteers, their local postal workers, and their shippers, the wonderful FedEx that sponsored so much of their shipping.   

While it would seem to many of us that scarves would be a great winter holiday gift -- and I mentioned that to Karen -- she said that because many of their students are not in the dorms at that time, and FedEx will not just leave a package without someone to receive it, it becomes problematic, so the Valentine's package is really the most desirable one. 

We would like to ask everyone to concentrate on quality, not quantity, and we must reiterate some important things: 

• Unisex, unisex, unisex. (the majority of scarves received were more feminine than masculine, and that makes the task of sorting that much more difficult)  Ask yourself if your son, your brother, your husband, your less-frilly girl would enjoy receiving the scarf you are knitting or crocheting.  They will be posting links to a few free downloadable patterns (and we are asking you to bring some of these to our attention if you know of any, or if you are a designer, are you willing to design a unisex scarf pattern for the project?) and to try to stick to those patterns, or ones similar.  Relative uniformity, without being boring, is the idea.  They would like all their recipients to feel absolutely thrilled with their gift on all levels -- fabric, style, color. 
• Soft.  Very soft yarns, please. 
• No laceweight, super-chunky, or mohair yarns. (there are many people who find mohair too itchy, for example)  Preferably DK, doubled fingering-weight, worsted weight, or light bulky yarns.  It is hard for us knitters to remember sometimes that not all can appreciate scratchy wool, itchy mohair, and scratchy acrylics, but we must put ourselves in the mindset of the non-knitter.  The OFA wishes the scarves to be substantial, drapey and warm, but not heavy and rug-like, and not scratchy. 
• No stockinette scarves or other stitches that are notorious for curling.
• Save the Fun Fur for your chemo-cap knitting, please.

So I will leave you with this to chew on for now, and hope you will accept it with the great understanding that I am confident you will.  As soon as I get word that the new website is operational and that you should be going in to register your intentions, I will, of course, announce it.  I hope we can all embrace the changes, understand the need for them, and knit and crochet on, with gusto and love.

If you haven't already read Kay's post of yesterday, go have a look.  "...a miter and a dream."  I love that woman.

Comments

[cathy goldman]

I am so happy that I read your post yesterday - because MY DH accidently tossed the OFA Brochure. I found it and was grateful that I did. WOW! We all should pat ourselves on the back. But espceially give you a tremendous hug for getting us into this project. I am so happy that I did. Thank you. cg

[Carole]

I know the scarves I knit were relatively boring but they were also man-appropriate and that was my goal. Worsted Weight. Red. Broken Rib Stitch. That's the ticket!

[maryse]

nicely done norma. that's just awesome.

[Elizabeth D]

What a wonderful problem for the OFA to have!! I bet they never in a million years thought they'd have cause to need to establish guidelines like these. They all make sense, and I'm happy to comply. Way to go, Norma's team! (And everybody else!)

[margene]

You are a force. You rock.

[Vicki]

I love the knitblogger scholarship/fund idea. Your "unauthorized aside" ruminations are usually darn good ones, Norma. It's just so cool.

[Stacey]

I had to re-read that first sentence. I kept "seeing" heresy instead of heresay. I think I need more coffee.

[Renee]

Great Scott! Well, at least I don't have to feel bad for forgetting to send my one measly red scarf. It's on its way to Afghanistan instead now.

[scout]

Holy shit Norma. That is just awesome. I can't wait to make a few for this next round. I'm in for donating money too. :)

[sandy]

Norma, this is amazing. You are amazing. Bloggers are amazing. Scarves are amazing.
I guess I'm just amazed!
LX

[Sara]

I am so going to knit a scarf this year... I think the idea of sending a monetary gift along with it is an awesome one!

[Cathy]

Isn't that amazing that it was too sucessful? Read a similar story about penguin jumpers recently.

[Roxie]

OK,soft and cozy, drapey, no mohair, and stick in a dollar with each scarf. Great! I'll get started right away!

Norma, I want to give you a great big hug!!

[isela]

Yeah for our leaders! Norma--I would like to provide the site with a loom knitted scarf pattern for other loomies to use. Do you think we can have it up on the OFA site for other loomies to find?

[marianne]

What an amazing number of scarves!!! Seriously, is there a better, more generous of spirit than the Knitters of the world? I'm tending to think not.

[Carol]

Now that's the ticket. Too many! Lawdy...I got a card from them too and those meanies made me cry. I appreciate the advance notice, now I can start one and have it ready on time. I was starting to think Red Scarf already, so this just confirms it's time to start. (I do take forever ya know)

[Stacy]

This is completely off topic (sorry), but is anyone going to Maryland Sheep & Wool? It's only two weeks away. squee!

[Carrie]

Aww, but that one girl you met with Gale loved that fun fur scarf!
Perhaps I will skip the OFA and stick to local foster care donations this year, to give them all time to catch up!

[Helen]

Oh I SO like the scholarship idea!
Perhaps "we" could set up a paypal donation account so that folks could donate along, and then on the appointed day, we send in the money (thus keeping the bookkeeping headache out of OFA's hands for awhile, and simultaneously allowing us to see just how wonderful we are?)
where do I click in??

[Kim]

Wow, we really delivered on the OFA. =)

[Cookie]

Woo!

I vote Irish Hiking Scarf, but you knew that. ;^)

[Christie]

This is just a crazy thought, but I love the idea of a Red Scarf Scholarship. I was watching The View the other day and Rosie O'Donell is very committed to revamping the foster care system [they even dedicated an entire show to foster care]. I think that if you were to bring to her attention the huge response of the Red Scarf Project, she'd totally help out anyway she could...and she has the power and platform to make something really big happen.

...just a thought.

[kelpkim]

i love your idea of making just 1 scarf and donating money for gift cards. excellent!
wow...that's a lot of time and energy and work to manage all the scarves they got! ouch! but i'm glad that us knitters are so willing to help! I can't wait for next year and i'll definitely be willing to abide by the new rules! :o)anything for such a legitimately good cause!
and if you want to start a donation-along with the red scarf along, i think that would be great. just $1 per scarf? that's a lot of money! :o) and thanks a lot for organizing the blog/kal too!

[Katherine]

Wow.

[Wanda]

Sounds good to me. I'd prefer to knit just a scarf, as I only managed one this year, anyway. :-)

[Sara G-L]

I really agree with the ideas suggested by you and Karen of the OFA. I was thinking along those lines myself when I read the total of 12,000 yesterday! And now it seems its much higher than that!
I think the idea of a Red Scarf scholarship is really brilliant! I'm sure most of our knitting community would love to participate.
Thanks from all of us blog readers for being so involved in such a good cause.
Thanks also for the heads up on the collection deadline - I know you'll keep us posted!

[Kristen]

Ultimate slacker girl now feels a wee bit less guilty that she has one half-finished red scarf sitting in her UFO pile. And also very humbled by the generosity of others.

[Dusa]

I really like Stephanie's ribbed scarf as a unisex design - (http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2006/10/12/one_row_handspun_scarf.html).

And all for the scholarship fund! Woot!

[Kimberly from Some Bunny's Love]

Hi Norma,
Thanks for the kinds words. I am so glad that I was able to participate this year in RS2007. As for the "hard-nose" rules, I view them as valid guidelines, so I completely understand why you posted them. I will be writing up a couple of patterns in honor of the victims killed at my alma mater, and one of them is a scarf that (hopefully!) meets the OFA's expections.
Bunny hugs!
=:8

[Kirsten]

Bravo! That is wonderful news! I love your idea of a knitters scholarship for the OFA.

[My Merino Mantra]

Your post is so timely. I also received the thank you note, but I thought to myself that it was unnecessary; an e-mail thanks would have saved them money, and would have be fine with me. The response I got from people donating scarves last year was overwhelming, and I was just one of many collecting them. I knew early on that the RSP would have too many scarves. For this year, I love the idea of making one scarf, and giving a cash donation to the RSP. The larger meaning of the RSP idea isn't to give someone a "scarf", but rather to help a young person out. And I hear you about the scarf rules! What is so hard about that?

[Melissa]

I have a collection of links here:
http://crazycatladymel.livejournal.com/309012.html

Maybe some will come in handy. And you know I'm up for tags, etc., if needed.

[Holly]

Hey. I came across this. i just wanted to say thank you to everyone. My name is Holly. Im 22. I got a scarf in my package. It meant the world to me. I don't have a family and continue to deal with homelessness and other issues since aging out of the system at 18. To get a package to me is like getting a great big hug. It makes me think that maybe there is someone who cares even if they don't know me. Im sure others feel like me too. just wanted to say thanks.
Holly