A dentist adopts a creche

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The best laid plans!

 

Ah, the best laid plans! Do you remember last ezine I said, 'short and often?' How many of you also suffer from the 'time no longer exists' syndrome? It is characterized by a number of odd symptoms: it is evening just shortly after getting out of bed; Friday seems to follow Monday and the rest of the days of the week have disappeared; the first of the month is followed almost immediately by the 15th of the month and only a few days later by the last day of the month. The year starts in January, touches base with you around Easter, reminds you that it's cold (or hot) depending on which hemisphere you live in, and then ends with only 10 shopping days until Christmas.

The upside of this is that there is never any room for boredom, and the downside is that you grow older much quicker and are continually frustrated by what is left to do. Having said that, there is always time to be reminded of the work we are doing and why we are doing it.

"Keep up the good work that you are doing as you will certainly have the satisfaction of knowing that somewhere in South Africa a vulnerable child is being emotionally assisted and kept warm thanks to your willing soul and hands."

Claude Nkebi, project manager, Hellenic Church counselling centre, Bez Valley, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Claude's sentiment above, sent recently in an email, summed up eloquently the impact of the work you and KAS are doing in South Africa.

And from Elizabeth, (Brisbane, Australia) in the forum, this excerpt from a post called:

Thank you KAS from the bottom of my heart', touched many of us and will continue to do so for a long time too:

"…thank you KAS, for all you give to me. Thank you for the sense of community across the oceans. Thank you for providing me with opportunity to learn new knitting skills, which I can use for me, for my friends and family, and for many who I will never meet. Thank you for the kind words, the messages of encouragment and the thoughtful touches. Thank you for the support I get for knowing that across the miles we are linked, stitch by stitch. Thank you for reminding me that I can make a difference, and thank you for the photos which prove it."

 

PLEASE READ ON:
Nkosi Haven – Soweto Gospel Choir blanket distribution • A quick tour of KAS • A Dentist adopts a creche • Planet Purl – over 200 squares received – Let's make it 1,000! • KASAOTG: Here's inspiration to spread the word • Make it in May • Waiting for baby news • New mods • Blitzing the pile • Erica's solution • Eye candy – your beautiful work! • Square lists

 

 

A WARM WELCOME, AS ALWAYS TO OUR NEW MEMBERS
As of 8.30am GMT, Wednesday 5 May, we had 999 members on the forum! We watched with baited breathe and soon after that our 1000th member, Anne Hirst from Scotland joined us. Congratulations Anne. We now have 1,025 forum members and 2,839 subscribers to Square Circle.

We have understood from a lot of of the communication we receive, that many of our new members are finding us now, not necessarily through the knit-a-square or forum websites.

We so hope that you will stay with us on this long journey to warm and comfort the orphans of South Africa, and hopefully throughout Africa in time. We often refer back to blanket distributions like Nkosi Haven, Jabulani Khakibos Boys or Ten Thousand homes and challenges, like 'the July Challenge' which was 'Keep a Newborn Warm'. If this sounds like a foreign language, please read the back copies of this ezine and join our forum, where ANY question you ask will be answered in a warm and helpful manner.

 

A QUICK TOUR OF KAS – it has grown so quickly it confuses even the family!
Some of you may not be aware of the history of KAS. I recently wrote a brief history for a fund-raising proposal and offer it here to those of you who may not be familiar with 'the two families on two continents' story of how KAS came to be this world wide community working so hard to help the children. You can download it here.

Here too, is a quick chart and explanation of where everything fits in and also of the many websites associated with KAS and how they all do different work to find you, assist you, raise funds and of course bring to the attention of the world the plight of the orphans.

 

 

A Dentist Adopts a Creche

 

During our recent trip to South Africa, we witnessed these little children, some of whom were clearly ill, asleep on the floor and separated from the dirt only by a piece of linoleum. Since then we have all being thinking a great deal about the creches of which there are hundreds and hundreds in Soweto alone, let alone the rest of South Africa, and how we can help them.

The obvious and first thing to do is to get blankets and hats on every child in a creche. We have also been having a conversation in the forum about sleeping mats, or pillowcases to cover blankets to act as sleeping mats, for the June/July challenge.

Our issue is, as always, how do we fund the facilitation of this on the ground in South Africa? It is one thing to receive squares and make the blankets without funds, distributing within the resources we have, but quite another to run an organization that puts blankets on children, in say two to three hundred creches each winter, without funding.

And so the idea, still in its infancy, was born. We would appeal to lots of organizations and individuals for different levels of support to firstly, wrap the children in blankets, but in time provide sleeping mats, educational material and basic nutrition. We have had some very well considered and philosophical input from one of our great supporters. She has worked out how these levels could best describe what can be done with the support, but as we are still working out the logistics, we will share that with you in the next ezine.

Back to my dentist. I had a regular check up and decided to test the idea. Joe Xanthopoulos is a busy dentist, so I knew there was only a short window in which to ask him if he would consider it – about 30 seconds to be precise!

I said: " Would you consider adopting a creche in South Africa to make sure that little children do not have to sleep on the cold, hard floor in winter. They will be given a blanket, a hat and some basic educational tools – a pencil and exercise book. This will make an enormous difference in the lives of up to 35 children in a creche, some of whom are orphaned and affected or infected with HIV/AIDS. It will only cost you US$500.

He simply said 'yes'. While for an individual this is a sizable sum, for many organizations, it is not. Furthermore, the outcome is completely tangible. They would only have to look at the photographs of the children with their blankets to know that they had supported our work, which does make an enormous difference.

If any of you have contact with an organization who you know to have philanthropic aims, perhaps our Adopt a KasCreche will be something they will consider. Here are two resources which might help you in the first instance: Who is KasCare, a brief background, and the Adopt a Creche form.

Presently we do not have registration outside of Australia and we recognize this may be a stumbling block for organizations seeking tax exemption for their gifts. However, it is a relatively small amount at this level of giving and so some organizations may still consider it, especially when they see a blanket wrapped around a baby who was previously lying on the cold floor. Thank you Joe, from all of us, for being the first of many, we hope.

 

 

From the blog

 

NKOSI HAVEN AND THE SOWETO GOSPEL CHOIR BLANKETS

Here is an article written on the blog, 'All for Orphans', about our time spent delivering blankets to the children of Nkosi Haven during our recent visit to South Africa. For our new members, the story also describes the work that was done to put together 25 blankets for a promotional event, in conjunction with the famous Soweto Gospel Choir in Philadelphia, in January.

The article tells the story of Nkosi Johnson, the 12 year old AIDS campaigner made famous by his speech to the 13th International Conference on AIDS. He died not long afterwards. The story of Nkosi and his foster mother, Gail Johnson, who we met, is a deeply poignant story and highlights exactly why we do this work. Click here to read the story.

From the forum

MAKE IT IN MAY

We have put up the challenge in both the forum and ravelry. It is not too late to join in (still 10 days to go) and send us your creative work this month. Be inspired by these fabulous squares opened while we were in South Africa in April this year.

Here is the challenge: Most of the blankets we now distribute include at least one, two or more squares, in between the ‘plain jane' (garter or plain crochet) squares that are creative, embroidered, striped, patterned, appliqued, initialled, sequined, beaded, buttoned, ribboned, multi-yarned, multi-coloured or just exquisitely made.  It is incredible how these squares lift the whole blanket into a work of great beauty.  Knit-a-square works on lots of levels, but importantly, it is democratic because each blanket is unique; it combines the selfless love of the world. All are made by squares which are warm, cosy and have your beauty and creativity that makes the blanket extraordinary.  These squares are the best way to personalise the blankets for our children.

PS: If any of these beautiful squares are your work, please let us know in the forum thread,Meeting You. This is a great place to introduce yourself and meet others too, so we look forward to a chat with you soon. You can also upload your work

 

KASOTG – Knit A Square On The Go Day

The first Saturday in May was the second KASOTG day. While the concept is still in its infancy, many Kasers got involved in different ways. Dawne wrote this about her event.

I've had a cold & it's allergy season so Saturday morning came hard and early for me because I did not sleep well the night before. We needed to be at the farmer's market at 7:30. (a.m. – yikes!) Thankfully Emma was bringing the presentation board she made with photos I printed her from the forum. I had much of my yarn/needles ready to go the night before which helped.

My husband Dave came with me but he did not knit. (slippery as a greased pig. LOL!) I taught Emma and Amelia (her sister) more things about knitting while we waited for people to come. And they did! We had promoted our event but I thought it would be the walk-through traffic that would make or break the event. In the end some of our friends did come out and we made some new acquaintances too. One of the most fun moments for me was teaching a 3.5 year old little girl to knit. Her mother and I spoke quite a bit and she took the KAS on a Page flyer home. Every time someone took a flyer it gave me a little sense of hope that they would actually go home and make some time to get to knit-a-square.com and be part of our continued work.

Two knitters I knew brought a finished square with them which was a very nice surprise. I was also given 3 skeins of a very thick, slightly rough wool. Boy, is it ever warm. I've been thinking about a sleeping mat. I can probably make a simple flannel pillow case to go around the mat. Wool for warmth and flannel for softness.

I gave Emma lots of pictures – the whole range from a group of smiling children wrapped in blankets to a photo of one of the Hill kids; a boy wearing his KAS hat. We decided we needed to use them all. The hope and the despair. The babies on linoleum really hit home for so many people. We also had a picture of Ronda in Bottegas, in a daycare, and I could point to her and say "this is Ronda, she heads up the S. Africa operation". Having the names of the places – Bez Valley, Protea South, Bottegas, Diepsloot – in the captions of the pictures gave us a 'ring of authority'. Not once did anyone express any hesitation that we were not a proper charity. How can they when the evidence is so clearly there?

I told people about the Hill children and Heloise's work. I told them about our 3,000 members worldwide. I told them 1 simple garter stitch square was a valuable gift of their time and talent. Lots of people told me they would tell their grandmothers who 'have knit so long they don't even have to look at their needles' and ask them to make squares. And 2 old men told me I was too young to knit. Their mothers knit, you know. I asked them "how do you think they got to be so good at it??" Oddly enough they didn't say anything about the very young girls (14 and 11) sitting with me!

There was a nice mix of people drawn by the cause and those drawn by the knitting. Mostly it was the cause, I think. We were set up near the craft table. They have a weekly craft for kids to encourage families to come out and buy produce, handmade items and treats like pastries and fudge. On the one hand we were a bit off the beaten track but on the other our table was often full and we were borrowing chairs to seat everyone. Had we been right next to all the farmers there would have been no room for people to stop and it would have been noisy! Several people who have weekly tables to sell knit/crocheted items stopped by for a chat. One of them is a crochet genius and has offered to teach me! Crochet squares are probably faster than knit squares.

Two girls, 10 and 12 years old, sat down with needles they brought, and their own yarn, and using the Navajo Ply method whipped up a square while they chatted with us. These are homeschoolers that I know and they knit German style which is pretty fast. I had shown their mom the triple yarn, Navajo trick and she has really taken to it! Other people worked on squares I had started. One woman started a square (she knew how to knit) but it's 10.5 inches long in a really nice Rowan tweed that is soft b/c it has cashmere in it. I think I'm going to pull that back and make an 8 inch square instead so it can be used immediately.

Six squares were made from 8 till 1 that day. Not too shabby really. A lot of the visitors were people who could not knit or women with young children with them so they couldn't really focus. I think these people might make squares at home, though, and we'll see that ripple effect like when you cast a stone into still water.

So many people asked us if we would be there next week. I tried not to show my shock at the thought and merely replied that the first Sat. of May is KASOTG Day and we were one part of a world wide initiative. It was nice to know we would have been welcomed, don't get me wrong, but week after week….. that's a big commitment. (and too early in the a.m.) I'd like to work with Emma again next year so we can continue to raise awareness about KAScare and its work.

I had an email sign-up sheet for anyone who wanted to help form a grown-up KAS group. I have 5 names. That's not too bad. I'm giving myself from now till Mother's day to focus on getting caught up on some things and resting to get rid of this cold. And then… I'll think about a location and see how many of these women really are willing to come out. Could be good. I have an optimistic view of this.

So there you have it.

Oh, the best bit! Dave took our donation jar and walked through the market inviting people to walk to the back to our table (we did have signs on the doors too). He had our donation jar and told people about the work for the orphans. Several people – men at that – gave him 5 dollar bills! He used a little trick of mine to put a bit of money in the jar as a start to encourage positive peer response. It sends the signal that someone else has determined our efforts to be of value. He raised $25.61 for us! Some of these people (the men) never even wandered back to our table but others did come to speak with us. The $25.61 is the total after he took back his $5 to buy me lunch! That's $25.61 in new money! I think I'll keep a few bucks for Emma to post the squares from Saturday and a few she has already made and PayPal the rest. Not too shabby eh?

 

Our goal is to have the thousands of KASOTG events with thousands of people knitting a square next year, so please be inspired by Dawne's evocative story and put it in your diary. After all as a knitter you are doubtless a busy person and that means that May 2011 is almost on us!

 

WAITING FOR BABY NEWS
We are all waiting for news of birth of Kyla's baby. Kyla is one of Canadian administrators in the forum and I know you will join with me in sending her our love and wishing her and Jim well for the arrival of their little girl, Cordelia.

NEW MODS
We are delighted that Elizabeth from Australia and Rona from the USA have joined the forum as moderators. Both, together with Dawne, have an interest in KAS in schools and are active participants of the KAS in our schools.

I hope you will hop into the forum and introduce yourself soon, especially if you are a teacher, have a child or a grandchild at school. They will certainly encourage you, I am sure, to introduce KAS to your school.

Anne is our long term administrator who has done remarkable work within her church community to raise awareness and also funds for KAS work. If you want to introduce KAS into your church groups, please contact her in the Church Group in Canada, and she will share with you her success.

 

Planet Purl and 1000 squares

 

Planet Purl is hosting a Warm Hearts Square Charity Knitting Drive – 2010 to benefit Knit-a-square and Warm up America. There support is incredibly generous.

For every square received that meets our program guidelines (8×8" and warm and cosy) they will donate $1 per square to KAS and they are mailing the squares to South Africa on your behalf. Also if you send in your details with your square, they will put you into a draw for $100 voucher at your favorite yarn shop. This is an opportunity way too good to miss. Thank you, Planet Purl for your generous support. 1,000 squares will warm a creche of children which is truly wonderful.

To find out more – visit Planet Purl.

 

 

Blitzing the pile!

 

We recently suffered a sudden and great loss in our family – our much loved brother and uncle – Pete Lovemore. Ronda has not been much in Johannesburg as a result, attending the services in two countries, and to the family too.

However, we are delighted to tell you that Erin (Ronda's daughter who works on a part-time for KAS and is the South African administrator in the forum) and her husband, Clive, have opened almost half of the backlog and have plans to have a 'parcel party' soon, where a host of willing volunteers will spend the weekend opening and sorting the balance.

Wonderfully, the post is flying in as fast as we open, but it has become imperative that we clear this, so that you all know your fantastic efforts have been safely received and will soon be warming children. Erin contributes to the thread in the forum, http://forum.knit-a-square.com/forum/topics/back-on-the-ground-in-sa and will write soon of their plans to 'blitz the pile'.

 

ERICA'S SOLUTION
Sometime back, there was a lively discussion on the forum, about how best to inform you all that your post had safely arrived. Erica came up with a solution. Now, amazingly, given the fact that most of you live in the USA, Canada and the UK, she lives in Melbourne, Australia too (where I live), so we met last week for a hot chocolate, on a cold autumn evening.

Erica's idea is brilliant and she has already done some work on a prototype.

Imagine if you were able to simply open a page through the website which would allow you to key in your name and email address, how many squares, hats, jumpers, others you were sending in your parcel, and then press print.

Okay, we are assuming most of you have access to a printer. If you do, you would print a label with the knit-a-square address on it, all the instructions with regard to No Commercial Value and For Charity Only, and a barcode. You would stick this label onto your parcel.

When your parcel arrived in South Africa, our volunteers would scan the barcode and immediately you would be sent an automated email telling you your parcel had safely arrived. It would also enter into our database who had sent what, saving us HOURS of time manually keying in all this data as we do now.

Erica is currently coding this and in about six weeks time, we will trial it. Once it is working satisfactorily for everyone, we will announce a 'go live' date. We are very excited about this project, believing it will save everyone a lot of time and let you know in a timely way, that your work has safely arrived in South Africa. Our grateful thanks go to Erica for the work she is devoting to this.

 

EYE CANDY – some of your beautiful work!

 

 

Square Lists

 

The square lists are updated now to May 17 and are up on the site.

Keep the children in your hearts and hands as winter takes hold in South Africa. We have so much work yet to do, so we are ever grateful for every stitch you make on their behalf. Just imagine living in a shack like the one below, and instantly you will realize how treasured your squares are.

You are very special to these children. Take care and be safe,

Sandy

An urgent appeal: children, right now, are suffering constant cold

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With the world's eyes glued to the current football carnival in South Africa, viewers may be forgiven for not knowing that an estimated 2,000,000 vulnerable and orphaned children live there.

Many of the children live in makeshift shelters like these or spend their days in shack creches. During winter they suffer constant cold. For those infected by HIV/AIDS, that means they are at risk of becoming seriously ill.

The 35 babies and children of Itumelang Creche in Protea South, Soweto are warm today, because we wrapped blankets around them made from your squares, in March this year.

These small shack creches provide a safe haven for children who may be orphaned, or ill, or otherwise left all day to fend for themselves. They are often put together by local folk of goodwill who may have no resources themselves.

There are hundreds and hundreds of creches similar to this, dotted throughout the shack settlements of South Africa, filled with little children from tiny babies to five year olds, who are asleep, right now, on bare floors.
 

What can we do to help?

First lets review what KAS in South Africa has achieved. Ronda and her team of dedicated volunteers and their personal networks of family, friends and parishes have put in an extraordinary effort over the last 18 months. They have:

• collected and transported several thousand parcels and boxes from the post office

• sorted, recorded, bundled and organised blanket-making from over 82,000 squares

• opened, sorted, stored or distributed another 7,000 knitted items and boxes of 'slip-ins'

• made dozens of distributions through many different outlets, each individually arranged

• wrapped over 2,000 blankets around children greatly in need.

 

 

Logistically, this is a quite a feat, because:

• the distances in Johannesburg are vast often separated by hours

• many of the areas into which we go are not always judged to be safe

• finding the networks through which to distribute takes time and a great deal of patience

• people we connect with often don't have transport or telephones or spare money

• arrangements for transport of squares/blankets are dependent on friends and family.

This recent photograph of Wandi and Lindi in the back of Pastor Phillip's car, for the hour's ride home together with over 1,000 squares for the Pimville sewing team, shows that arrangements are made, no matter how uncomfortable!

Why we need your help

Our KAS family in South Africa loves you. They love what you are doing, your squares, your talent, effort and commitment. They love your letters and your compassion. In turn, they are completely committed to, and passionate about, making blankets to warm and comfort these vulnerable and orphaned children.

We appealed for your help in March, so that we could employ an operations manager in South Africa to help them expand this work.

This person would network to find more people like Sister Sato, Heloise, Lindi, Wandile, Arnie and Oliver and to locate the creches and children's homes throughout Johannesburg and, in time, the regions and other major cities.

They would set up proper working arrangements for the collection, storage and sorting of the arriving post and unpacked squares. They would arrange and organise distributions together with Ronda, Erin and the team, but be able to dedicate every day to facilitate these activities.

They would also fundraise as part of their role responsibility so that we could expand the team. In turn, this would ensure that together, we warmed more and more children.

Once we have the resources to handle an increasing volume of squares arriving in South Africa, we would be able to step up the promotion of KAS into schools internationally through the KasKids™ program.

We would also continue to develop the elderly people's program for retirement and aged care homes and find more knitters through social networking online.

All these plans are in place, but first we must make sure that our dedicated volunteers have the help they need.
 

This is how you have already helped

Since we made our very first appeal last year in August, we have received close to AU$11,000 in donations.

We have just over 200 donors of which more than half are sending us recurring monthly donations ranging from US$2 to$50 a month.

Our gratitude for this support is immense. We could not have continued KAS without your financial help to support our team in South Africa.

$5,000 has been used over the last 6 months to meet basic running costs in South Africa. The balance of the money remains in the bank to continue to meet these requirements. It is not enough yet to employ an operations manager.

We need 750 donors averaging $5 a month.

If we succeed in getting sufficient funding, then our immediate response will be to find the right person to do this vital job. Please will you swell the ranks of our growing KAS supporters' group and consider this small monthly recurring donation to help us achieve this?

To put it into perspective, it is the cost of just two cups of coffee. What a huge difference making this small sacrifice could be to many thousands of children over the years to come.

YOU CAN DONATE HERE THROUGH PAYPAL (The paypal button is on the right!)

You can also help by asking organisations you know, if they would consider adopting a creche. You can download Who is KasCare? and the Adopt a Creche form from these links.
 

A gift to thank you

As a token of our appreciation for your donation (past and present), we will send you a copy of Heart Yarns, a beautifully illustrated book of poems, prayers and songs devoted to knitting and crochet, written by Roger G McDonald. It is inspired by you, the knitters of KAS.

No matter what you give, your time, talent or a donation, we value you highly and are deeply grateful for what you have done to help the vulnerable and orphaned children of South Africa.

With warmest best wishes and heartfelt thanks for your consideration of our plea.

Sandy

 

PS I took a break recently from the day to day issues of running our grassroots charity, to share with you a wonderful story of immense hope. It is about the home Stefanie built to nurture the Jabulani Khakibos Kids and the great contributions you have made to support them.

CHALLENGE: Read how we can all honor Nelson Mandela's work and add to the tally of our current challenge of 55,900 squares!

News from South Africa and the KAS community around the world, together with May and June's Square lists will be in Square Circle coming to your inboxes soon!

 

YOU CAN DONATE HERE THROUGH PAYPAL

Thank you!

Toward comfort and protection

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Toward comfort and protection

 

Greetings from wintry Melbourne this grey afternoon, but from which we are so happy to bring you stories toward comfort and protection in this winter/summer issue of Square Circle, depending in which half of the globe you reside! A very warm welcome too, to our 81 new forum members and 43 new subscribers from all over the world.

We have been very busy since the last issue. Firstly, we are really pleased to tell you that the backlog of parcels is cleared.

We have moved ever closer toward warming many more children with delivery of volumes of squares to two of our major projects, Vuselela Community Centre and Oasis SA Cosmo City Blanket Warming Project, courtesy of the efforts of two organizations, University of Medical and Dentistry, New Jersey and Nampak SA.

We have made several distributions to some very cold children in creches in Soweto and Thembisa and through Lindiwe and Wandile's Parishes.

And the forum and Ravelry members have reduced our goal of 55,900 squares currently needed for all our projects, by the truly astonishing tally of 10,770 squares in just one month. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I hope you will take the time to grab a cuppa, sit down and enjoy the news from South Africa and our wonderful world wide community's ongoing contribution toward comforting and protecting vulnerable and orphaned children.

Contents
Good news stories, the magic of 2000 x 2 • Vuselela sing their thanks • Hope and blanket distributions at Nokuphila School • A touching story • Jabulani Khakibos Kids resplendent in their gifts • News from SA • KasKids™ thrives • Your news • Take a little comfort yourself

 

The magic of 2000 x 2

 

The two feature stories in this issue, written by Dhanu Misken from the University of Medicine and Dentistry, New Jersey and Shelley Mandy from Nampak SA, highlight just how powerful a concentrated effort from a group of people can be.

Both organizations have, within a week of each other, donated plus or minus 2000 squares to KasCare. These substantial contributions have been passed on to our two major projects, Vuselela Community Centre and Oasis Cosmo City Blanket Warming Project. They are both such good stories and ones that I hope will reach out and inspire other organisations to follow suite.

UMDNJ and FedEx Team Up to Deliver Knitted Squares to Africa
DHANU MISKIN

NEWARK— With help from FedEx, which provided funding for charity shipping, knitted and crocheted squares collected by students at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) will soon be on their way to needy children in South Africa. When they arrive, the squares, which measure 8” by 8”, will be combined with other squares to create homemade blankets for children who either have been abandoned, or orphaned by the deaths of their parents due to AIDS.

Dhanu Miskin, (right) a fourth-year student at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, was inspired to bring Knit-A-Square, a charity that sends blankets to needy children, to the University. She has received approximately 2,250 squares from donors and FedEx has agreed to deliver the precious cargo.

An estimated 11.6 million babies are orphaned in sub-Saharan Africa and 1.4 million of them live in South Africa. These statistics were enough to motivate Miskin who with the help of Alice Owen, wife of UMDNJ President William F. Owen, Jr. MD, arranged for more drop-off boxes to be distributed across all UMDNJ campuses. ?"The entire concept of Knit-A-Square seemed ideal for medical students. It's a community service project that requires little time commitment or money, but makes a huge difference in the lives of cold, abandoned children," explained Miskin, who first heard about the concept of charity knitting from her mother.

"There were numerous websites promoting charity knitting and crocheting projects, but once I found the www.knit-a-square.com website, I was drawn to its simplicity,” said Miskin. "My mother taught me how to knit and also instilled in me the incredible value of helping others."

We are deeply grateful to Dhanu, Alice Owen, the participating students from UMDNJ and Fedex for delivering these 2,250 squares to South Africa.

From here in New Jersey, to here in South Africa.

Last Thursday, Ronda, Lindiwe, Wandile and a young friend visiting from Australia, Lauren Bamford went to Vuselela Community Health Centre in the informal settlement, Diepsloot to teach the assembled group how to sew the blankets, starting with these 2,250 squares.

Diepsloot is a shack settlement, a city within a city, sandwiched between relatively wealthy suburbs in Johannesburg. It sprawls as far as the eye can see from the side of a main arterial road leading toward Pretoria. Many families live in small shacks made from scrap metal, wood, plastic and cardboard. Basic services such as running water and rubbish removal are scattered at best. It is estimated that more than half the population of 150,000 are unemployed. Poverty abounds.

We first introduced Sister Sato, who runs Vuselela Community Health Centre, to you in October last year and the work she does for some 640 children who are orphaned or made vulnerable as a result of being infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.

When we visited South Africa recently we visited Sister Sato at the centre, and took more blankets and hats.

At the time, we gave this tiny little girl a jumper. She was so excited, she approached me to say thank you. She showed me to place our fingers together on one hand, then flick them away as we said the universal South African expression 'sharp', which means great, or fabulous or cool. We did this several times to her obvious amusement.

She has left an indelible mark on my mind.

Sister Sato was greatly excited at the thought that we might be able to provide enough squares to make up 500 blankets for the balance of the children. We would need to supply them 17,500 squares.

Not long after that we started a challenge in the forum to meet the requirements of Vuselela and a number of other current projects requiring 55,900 squares in total.

The delivery of the 2000 squares from the UMDNJ is a truly wonderful start for this worthwhile project. Ronda takes up the story of the day.

The Vuselela driver and his assistant collected the 8 boxes from UMDNJ on Weds 30th, the day before our visit.

In each box we opened, there was a lovely letter from UMDNHJ with an explanation as to how KAS was introduced to them.

It went SO well – Sister Cecilia was THRILLED, and she had organized three facilitators, Dora, Jacqui and Nellie. to get a group of 20 people together to stitch the blankets. There were 5 men amongst them, one of whom was an expert.

We took a sack of beanies, one of go-overs and of smaller toddler pullovers and vests and sweaters. We also took food which was very much a highlight of the day and a box of stationery for the children, which Sister C was delighted about.

The first blanket was completed in just 1 hour and ten minutes!

Here is a video of this community of helpers singing their gratitude for this gift of squares. They know that there are more squares coming as some of the 10,000+ squares made by forum members this month wing their way to South Africa.

Please join with us in the challenge to complete the required 55,900 squares needed for the projects to hand.

Knitting Nampak rises to their challenge
The second amazing delivery was from Nampak South Africa. Nampak is an international packaging corporation with a large company based in South Africa. They have a very strong social investment charter. We have been delighted by the staff contribution (see the photograph above) to knit-a-square and were particularly amused by the antics of the IT department as both Shelley and Ronda tell. Shelley Mandy wrote:

Each year Nampak Head Office focuses on an HIV related charity on World Aids Day.

The Knit-A-Square initiative was suggested and accepted and a competition was started to see which department at Nampak Head Office could knit the most squares by 1 December 2009.

Group HR rushed around buying employees knitting needles and wool and then discovered that some of the younger generation, who were enthusiastic to knit, had never been exposed to Home Economics at school, and so we started knitting lessons at lunchtimes. What a lot of laughs we had, with even some of the males braving the knitting circles.

Each week we had more requests for more knitting needles and wool, and started making weekly pilgrimages to the wool shop in central Johannesburg, bringing back many boots full of wool. Employees started knitting during presentations, and our security, cleaning and canteen ladies were seen knitting whenever they could.

After World AIDS day, all those who had knitted met in a conference room, bearing their boxes of squares, to be counted and audited by our Internal Audit Department. It was unanimously agreed that everyone would like to continue knitting over the holiday period, as most people would be taking leave and would have more time, so it was agreed to do the final count at the beginning of February 2010.

We also set ourselves a new target, to knit 2010 squares in 2010 !! In February when we did a final count for the competition, we had 1759 squares, and the inter-departmental competition results were as follows:

1. Group IT (391)

2. Group HR (389)

3. Corrugated Division Head Office(227)

4. NMS Admin (222)

The winning team received a free lunch in our canteen and the ladies who knitted the most squares were given gift vouchers. The ladies were Marie du Plooy (91), Belinda Heath (64), Wendy Norris (52), Elizabeth Ndlovu (45).

We then discovered that our IT Department, which has a large contingent of males had shown a lot of initiative, by approaching a retirement home and providing wool and knitting needles and paying the ladies to knit, at R10 a square! We did not quibble, as there were no rules in the competition as to who could be recruited to knit and whether it could be outsourced. Our objective was to get as many knitted squares as possible. The fun employees had with the initiative and the comradrie it generated within departments was wonderful.

In addition, many people commented that in the high stress period, in December when everyone is tired after a long year, before their long awaited annual leave, that knitting was very therapeutic and relaxing. So there was an unintended benefit !!

I think employees felt that they may not be able to give large donations of money, but they could all make a small contribution by giving of their time to knit a square, which could become something meaningful.

It is a wonderful initiative and Nampak wishes Knit-A-Square much success in registering as an NGO and growing from strength to strength in the future.

Ronda organised with Shelley to go to Oasis to deliver the squares and tells the story below:

It was a successful and most interesting time at Oasis this morning. We (Sian, – right below- my older daughter who lives in Cape Town and was visiting with her children, and I) met Shelley and Barbara from Nampak on the access road to Cosmo City and led them to Oasis.

Erin was already there with her children and their two cousins – one of whom, Jade, is at high school and was hoping to gain experience towards a social responsibility study currently running at the school, which also involves spending a designated amount of time engaging with poor communities. She helped open envelopes and boxes yesterday and is enthusiastic about further volunteering opportunities.

Arnie Sweigers, who runs Oasis SA, had telephoned last night to say that his government supplier of immunization drugs had let him down (again) and that there would be many fewer people at the clinic this morning – which meant that distribution of blankets could not take place. He is now hoping to receive his supplies by Tuesday for the next clinic day. However we went as planned, because Nampak wanted to deliver all their squares which did, indeed, happen.

We sat in a circle in the warm winter sunshine while Arnie explained all the working aspects of the Oasis project . We met his wife who helps out at the clinic who has senior healthworker qualifications so although not a doctor, can prescribe medicines.

Cosmo Cityis in marked contrast to Diepsloot and is widely regarded as an excellent model for relocating people from the shack settlements into government housing. None the less the people here remain infected or affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty.

Shelley and Barbara came back to the house to have a tea and muffins and we all got on like a house afire. Shelley had some amusing stories of their square knitting efforts; how so many of their younger staff had no idea at all on how to knit and had to be shown from scratch; and how amazed they were that the IT Department, comprising mostly young men, managed to produce the greatest number of squares, until they found out that they had supplied wool and needles to a nearby retirement village and paid R10 per square, with the darlings knitting up a storm to maximize their earnings!
 

 

A touching story from Pimville

 

These two anecdotes provide a moving insight into how the work you do connects, beyond the distributions:

From Ronda: This young chap (Kgomotso, I think !) received a blanket at the Pimville distribution about 10 days ago. Khaya (who is the chairlady of the sewing group) tells me they have noticed him in church quite often over the months, always participating vigorously, animated, singing at the top of his voice and obviously enjoying himself – and then he was invited to join a youth group of sorts on an outing but arrived without the designated T-shirt (Sowetans love a 'uniform' as they call it, and always organize T-shirts for specific events).

When asked where his T-shirt was, he said he was an orphan living with an elderly grandmother. Until that moment they had no idea of that – he never complained and always appeared well cared for, but apparently he has a battle on his hands to even get to church. They were so touched by his story, they decided to give him a blanket even though he is older than the other recipients – about 14 yrs old. They also sorted him out with a school uniform, which he is wearing in the photograph with Khaya, and he is on the outreach programme now.

Another slightly older child is an eleven year old who is suffering from leukaemia and is so weak she hardly ever leaves the shack she lives in with her mother, but they did come to the Pimville church for the distribution and apparently she truly loves her blanket and told Khaya that, whenever she feels really ill, she snuggles into it and feels the warm arms of Jesus around her, encouraging and comforting her. Such a beautiful story, I thought.
 

 

Distribution in to Nokuphila School in Thembisa
from Ronda

Nokuphila is our only project (so far) in Thembisa … this little school only started in January this year, with 45 children picked from specially difficult backgrounds – all living with the same desperate problems that one finds throughout South Africa in poor areas.

Founded and funded and administered under the auspices of Christchurch Midrand it is already a thriving little school–if only we had a million more of these projects.

My friend, Annie de Witt introduced us to this project – her son is a Church of England in SA (CESA) pastor in Cape Town and this is a branch of the same denomination, which is how we became involved.

She has worked very hard for this project and is now helping them establish a vegetable garden on the site. Also helping is Di who is administering a new project in Eersterus (60 kms from Pretoria) is also terribly keen to get blanket packs and blankets and beanies out there for 120 kids in dire circumstances.

Annie is going to try and keep the Nokuphila sewers stitching blankets up to send to Eersterus

The handout was beautifully organized, each child's blanket and beanie was labeled with their name and Annie did the presentation.

 

 

Projects like this provide us with so much hope. They are only 45 children among millions, but like the Jabulani Khakibos Kids they are being afforded an opportunity to receive an education and make a contribution to their society in the future.

We applaud achievements like this, and hope as Ronda says that such projects will be mirrored by the million throughout South Africa. The blankets will be greatly treasured by these small children. Thank you Annie for organising this on behalf of KasCare.

 

 

 

The Jabulani Khakibos Kids and their gifts from you

In our recent appeal sent last week , I directed you to a story about our visit to the Jabulani Khakibos Kids and the gifts you gave them. I sent the story too, to Stefanie and asked that if they had photographs we would very much like to see the boys with their blankets, GO-OVERS and hats. An immediate reply came back with the attached photographs.

They had in fact been sent much earlier but we did not receive them, as they had been sent to our younger daughter, Cressida's old email address. She helped KAS up until March this year developing the KasKids™ Program and while we miss her contribution greatly, we are happy to tell you that she is loving her work for CARE Australia.

Those of you who worked hard for the boys will be delighted to see how warm they all look now, especially walking the 5 kilometers to and from school on these very cold winter days.

 

 

 

Backlog cleared and deliveries aplenty!

From Ronda: We finished all the envelopes from USA and so CLEARED the floor completely … just long enough for it to be swept !

Then we pulled in all the post from yesterday’s collection. John (Hotel Hope's driver) had to make two trips even with his big vanette and once again the room looks chock-a-block.

Our SA KAS team with their new 'haul'. From left, Wandile, Otti, Big John (who has been doing the post run for us), Lindiwe and Erin, Thursday 24 June 2010.

But it was a big event, because it is absolutely the first time that floor has been completely cleared since about November last year !

Well done Ronda, Erin and the team (with help from the grand children as well.) This is a wonderful effort and we are really excited that we are through the backlog and can now more readily clear the post as it comes in.

Two of Ronda's grandchildren insist on helping, Luca and Gemma.

Soon we will be trial the new software that Erica has built for us, and once the glitches are ironed out, we will release it for general us – probably around September.

The Barcode Reader
For those of you who may not have received news of this before, this is will allow you to enter your name and details of what you are sending onto a specified page on the website. You can then print out a label which will have a bar code on it. Ronda and her team will be able to scan the bar code which will both enter the data for them and trigger an email to you alerting you to the safe arrival of your parcel. A true win win for everyone and our heartfelt thanks go to Erica for both suggesting it and coding the software.

The Dreaded Duty
From Ronda: Customs Duty seems to have reached an all time high, not surprising perhaps, since so many large parcels are arriving now. Sadly, I was forced to send back two parcels to Customs for re-assessment of duty … one of R500 odd from Australia and again on Thursday, John had sent back one where R991 duty was required to be paid!. That's the highest levy ever received.

It is likely that the boxes did not fall within our specifications or that they noted specific items. They are currently being reassessed and I will report in the next ezine what the outcome is. We have a good relationship with the post office and if this duty is unreasonable, we feel certain it will be addressed otherwise we will attempt to establish the exact reason so we can avoid it in future!

 

Donations

I am happy to tell you that I have just received a donation of Can$200 to with a note saying it was specifically to cover duty. We are so very grateful for this support and feel greatly moved by such consideration. We also received a donation of US$750 last week from a member who already contributes regularly. It came from her mother's estate and with the comment that as her mother was an extremely generous person, she would be pleased to know that the money was being used for those in need.

We are now receiving just over US$1000 dollars a month in recurring donations. Thank you all. I hope you have received your copy of Heart Yarns which comes with our heartfelt thanks.

This is greatly helpful in ensuring we can continue to support our South African KAS team to do their work with in their volunteer time and resources, but falls short, at this point, to appoint an operations manager as described in the appeal.

Please consider joining our growing band of KAS supporters with a small but regular donation. You can easily set this up through our PayPal donation form.

Every dollar goes toward making sure we get blankets on to vulnerable or orphaned children and that we spread both warmth and the word about their plight.

 

A visit from the USA to KAS SA

We received this letter and photographs from Melissa R. Rautenbach, College of Health Professions – Nursing, Temple University

Hi Sandy, I am in South Africa right now and was able to go over there last Thursday to drop off the squares. It was really wonderful to be able to have the opportunity to meet Ronda and to see for myself what happens to the squares. Ronda is an amazing lady for giving so much of herself to this project! Her house is surrounded in packages and squares.

I took a few pictures while I was there that I thought I would share with you. All the best, Melissa

From left to right: Ronda, Lindiwe, Melissa, Melissa's mother, Wandile, Samantha (Melissa's cousin and KAS volunteer now!)

Melissa followed this up with the news that her cousin Samantha was so touched by what she saw wanted to help out and she has indeed volunteered over a number of weeks for which we are very grateful. Melissa ended her email:

I must admit that I'm a little jealous that I'm not able to help out more directly. However, though university keeps me very busy, I am going to continue trying my best to make others here aware and encouraged enough to get involved. If you have any suggestions or advise regarding this, that would be great!

I have written to Melissa suggesting that perhaps her university may get involved in the same way that Dhanu's did and look forward to hearing from her in this regard.
 

KasKids™ News

Feedback on the Teacher Resource

We received this letter from Jackie some months ago about teaching her students to knit. I hope it might inspire some of you to purchase the Teacher Resource for a donation of $12.95.

It will help you get a school involved and further support the work we are doing in South Africa at the same time.

She wrote: I sending a few pictures of my 5th graders working on their squares. Like I mentioned before it's difficult to teach 21 , ten year olds how to knit. I found the teachers resource guide to be helpful in some ways. We have a smart board in our classroom, so showing the different parts of South Africa was very informative. The math page was great and some of the stories were very touching. We are knitting our squares from wool, so the properties of wool and that whole section was helpful. I needed to bring in adults from the community and retired teachers to help me. We are finally making some progress. It was nice to hear from you. Fondly, Jackie

 

Squares from Kankakee High School

Ronda made these brightly coloured lovely blanket layouts from the squares received from the kids of Kankakee Valley High School sent by their art teacher Stephanie Thilges, together with these vibrant loving letters. The squares will go to Antoinette McMasters sewing group to be made into blankets. Another inspiring contribution from a school, with grateful thanks.

From you

Here is a lovely cheery and happy poster from Erin Young in Brigham City, utah. Thanks everyone for this great contribution.

Feast your eyes on this beautiful work which arrived during the month. How pretty will some little girl feel in this bright GO-OVER?

KAS News

Some of the moderators in the forum, (Anne, Dawne, Debbie, Elizabeth, Erin, Jeanne, Kalai, Karen, Kyla, Rona and Sylvia and with help from RhondaH from ravelry) have been discussing ways to improve your experience in the forum this month. They have been working on navigation, cleaning up the categories, encouraging you to introduce yourselves and create your own blog and now the Pattern of the Month.

Pattern of the Month
We will soon be inviting you to submit your original patterns for possible selection as the Pattern of the Month. There will be criteria involved, that the pattern be original and that you are happy for us to publish it as a free pattern download. This is a wonderful way to challenge your crafting creativity and to contribute at the same time to growing our KAS membership as many people find us looking for free patterns. Look out this month for news of how to enter on the forum.

Dawne is also contacting knitting designers with a view to adding Designer Squares to our collection, which already features squares from Lucy Neatby, Kristeen Griffen Grimes and Diana Troldahl.

You can find these patterns on both the forum and in Zina's forum if you haven't already, take part in the challenges and in the various discussion threads, and we really look forward to meeting you.

 

Take a little comfort yourself

There are five new square lists on the knit-a-square site from May 25 to June 28. I think when you review the pages and pages of arriving post you will agree that everyone in South Africa has done an awesome job to clear the backlog.

Ronda makes notations against every parcel, "lovely stuff – old friend, truly beautiful squares, plus lovely long letter, message with God's blessings, grandma taught her, magnificent flower motif etc." She includes details of everything extra that has 'slipped in' as well.

We would so love to relay to each of you the way in which your letters, slip-in's, cards and notes touch us, but we must be pragmatic with our resources and use them the best way we can to serve the children. She gets many requests too for acknowledgement of receipt of the parcels, but we long since agreed that it is just not possible to meet all of these requests.

We realise that on occasion this may make some of you feel your wonderful contributions have not been met with due gratitude for your efforts. However, we greatly hope that the ezine (which is on average about every 5 weeks), news in the forum and All for Orphans will help you realise that everything you send finds its way, in time, to a needy child somewhere and they are comforted and warmed by your generosity.

You will see from the video, Vuselela sings their thanks, that gratitude for your magnificence is felt widely, by those who sew, those who share the volunteer work, the children who receive the blankets, those who work in South Africa to help these children. They feel real joy at this bounty. And connections keep being made with every stitch you make.

In a recent article in the spring edition of Interweave Crochet called Wrapped in Goodness, Betsy Greer of Craftivism made these wonderful observations about a blanket:

"…in times of need, a handmade blanket is infused with the goodness of human giving… …blankets are unique, because they fill an emotional need … … they are literally our protectors against the cold, our comfort when alone, and our companions in the dark."

At moments when you fear your work may not have reached it's destination, please comfort yourself with the thoughts that it and others like it have and will soon be, or already are, providing an abandoned, orphaned or vulnerable child with comfort and protection.

As at the 28 June we were only 4,127 squares away from the 100,000 SQUARE MAGIC MILESTONE! And on that truly exciting note, I will leave you with a quote from Dawne's latest blog: Universal Understanding. Clearly there is injustice in our world, but we are here also. YOU and I are here; we matter and we are not without the power to act…"

The next issue will be a special feature on KasCreches and the distributions we are currently making. But for now, we have so enjoyed bringing you this Square Circle issue with its stories of comfort and hope. These sentiments seem beautifully etched on the young faces of the children below.

Have a wonderful month and take great care of yourself, Sandy

To further support these children, you can donate here.

 

Newly orphaned children in your blankets

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Newly orphaned children in your blankets

 

Each month we are joined by dozens of new members both as subscribers and in the forum and ravelry group. It is an absolute joy each day to see the new subscriber notifications and know that means a growing community and more and more squares arriving in South Africa to help warm our children. Thank you all and a very warm welcome to knit-a-square.

SQUARE CIRCLE ISSUE 17.1
October 26 2009

 

A plea from us!
FEATURE STORY: Diepsloot–blankets for children who have recently lost their surviving parent AND our first GO-OVER™ finds a home.
Currency of Hope
6th Anniversary, Jabulani Khakibos Kids
St Michael's School embraces KAS
What has 'Death by Cashmere' to do with KAS?
Crochet, Knitting Heroes tele-seminar series
Anne 'Squares Off' and raises money
Debbie's Sit and Knit event
Two acts of kindness
The KAS/Keiskamma knitting tote
Spread the word – KAShair!

SQUARE CIRCLE ISSUE 17.2 October 30
Lots of your wonderful work
A video to gladden your heart
Glossary of ideas from the forum to consider.

This months ezine is broken into two issues – today's with all the news and Thursday's with loads of your amazing work and Ronda, Lindiwe, Sonya and Anne's beautiful layouts.

Also, please watch the Jabulani Khakibos Boys video (the link is in the story) between now and then as I will have to take it off the site in order to load the heart touching snippets of our children singing their thanks to you for next Thursday.

Although they are both short, the video's size prohibits both videos being up on the website at the same time. The quality is a little shaky, but they are, none the less, both well worth watching.

 

 

 

A plea from us!

 

I must beg everyone's kindness a little further. This month we were troubled to learn that a very young contributor who had organised a huge volume of squares had not heard from us, or that her sizeable efforts had arrived safely in South Africa.

Our current system relies entirely on you, who already spend hours knitting and crocheting, reading Square Circle in order to click through to the lists we post on the site of the contributors.

 

So many of you are now sending incredible contributions of hundreds of squares, singly or within groups, often with gifts for the children and with thoughtful and loving letters. Ronda photographs all the contributions and letters and sends them to me. We read every one with a joy and humility. By choice we would write a letter of acknowledgement to every one of you for one square or for hundreds.

 

At the moment this is just not possible –
if only we each had parallel weeks! So for now, could I ask any of you who are part of a group (church, community or school) to contact me through the website here, if you have made a very special contribution. We would like to acknowledge it by sending you a certificate of appreciation.

 

We will work toward a different system in the future when we have more resources. In the interim, I implore you to join the forum. By being in communication with the others who contribute, you will soon understand the weight of your work and the difference you are making.

We are greatly indebted to you. Your work brings to all who are involved great joy, a growing sense of the goodness of humankind and a belief that together –
we really can make a difference, one square
at a time.

 

Parcels and boxes ready to be opened in the last two weeks!

 

FEATURE STORY:
Diepsloot – blankets for children who have recently lost their surviving parent

 

Despite the overwhelming need of orphans and the poor generally evident everywhere, it is not always as simple as just walking into a shack settlement and handing out blankets.

To do justice to your lovingly made squares and the work of our volunteers who stitch the blankets, we need to find ordered means by which we can fairly distribute the blankets. We can not always know the status of the children as they wander the streets, neither would it be possible to guarantee that children randomly handed blankets would get to keep them.

This is the benefit of working through parishes and charitable organisations at this point. We will continue to seek those gatekeepers and custodians of the extreme poor to help us in all the settlements. Wandile in Protea South walks the streets searching for children in situations of neglect, abuse and illness and Heloise, who we introduced you to last month, continues to feed homeless and orphaned children such as the Hill Kids.

So recently Ronda was delighted to be reminded of a friend from her Parish, Seghonto (right), who she had met some months before. She rang him immediately and that very same day he organised a distribution in Diepsloot Shack Settlement through the good auspices of Sister Cecilia Sato who runs an organisation called the Vuselela Centre.

Seghonto is employed as a Peer Education Officer there and teaches drama to the children cared for by the centre. Ronda had 50 blankets completed ready for distribution and lots of hats and pullovers. It was also a particularly chilly day.

So within a few hours she was off to meet Seghonto at the main entrance of this vast settlement to be guided to the Centre.

The centre's care programs are listed as peer education, support groups and home based care among others. Basically, they are called to deal with situations involving destitution, sickness, death, abandonment or where underage children become orphans.

Sister Sato is a strong, Christian woman who is fiercely protective of her charges. She started the centre on her own several years ago.

 

 

Ronda said the number of blankets she had was horribly inadequate in terms of the children that were there, but they gave blankets to the most desperate children of all ages who had "most recently lost their surviving parent".

Just reading that makes one's heart ache.

 

After that she distributed pullovers and beanies. She wrote: "My most fervent prayers were answered when there were 6 beanies left over at the end. I just could not have borne it if any of those children had received nothing – they were aching for a present, bless their little hearts."

Nomsa, the SAW (Social Auxilliary Worker) called them up in family groups which is why some of the children are 16 or 18 years of age. So young, but parenting their siblings and other orphaned children.

Sister Sato in the background.

Sister Sato has asked whether she can call on Ronda in emergency situations when people are dying and need blankets or warm clothing. It is good to know that we can extend your kindness to help children at a the time when they may be losing a loved parent.

These photographs really do justice to the quality and beauty of your work. So I have featured as many as possible hoping that you will recognise your squares, hats and beanies.

if you do, you will be delighted to see how well they grace their new owners, particularly the children with the blankets who have been newly orphaned.

Lindiwe wrote down a list of some of the children who received blankets, but the situation did not easily allow Ronda to put the names to the actual photographs.

Still it is lovely to know that these are some of the children whose blankets contained the squares you made and sent.

Tomata, Thulane, Cassandra, Thapelo, Phako

Sanele, Ndevhuwo, Gugu, Mojalefa, Viola

Paulina, Knowledge, Surprise, Thandeka

Xoliswa, Nthokosisi, Nondumiso, Karen

Mluleki, Petros, Nkosinathi, Ismael, Nodiwe

Nkazimulo, Maxoba, Percy, Amokelang

 

Lots of warm little heads

Three absolutely gorgeous sweaters and don't they look fabulous on their new owners.

And here are two larger size square pullovers which look delightful on these two young girls.

Bradley on the left made himself known to Ronda as they left and gave her a hug. He is much younger than he looks.

 

Some of these faces are etched with sadness. In most cases these very young people are heads of families now. One young woman to whom we gave a blanket looks after 15 children.

And yet, this young boy displays his innate rhythm and sense of joy after being given his warm new pullover.

We look forward to working with Sister Sato over many years to provide the children she and her Centre care for with warmth and recognition of what they suffer.

The first GO-OVER™ finds a home

The GO-OVER™ is a pullover made out of squares. The protoypes were created by Anne Powell and Zanny Blew in response to Ronda commenting that most pullovers were too tight to 'go-over' other clothes. It is most fitting that this, Anne's first crocheted prototype GO-OVER™ has found a new and welcome home with this young boy.

You can find the patterns for the GO-OVER™ here.

 

 

 

Currency of Hope

 

As you know we are now incorporated, although we still await the precious number which will allow us to unfreeze PayPal! November 3rd we are told. In the meantime we have been sending out fund-raising proposals around the world. We will let you know of our success.

Funds are essential for our survival and growth and to ensure that we meet our goal: "warm every orphan and raise awareness around the world of their plight."

We have always thought of each square as a 'currency of hope'. So in an impromptu think thank this week, we had the idea to give a square a notional one dollar value. Could we then ask companies to fund 10 blankets at 35 squares per blanket for $350? It is such a modest amount, but the difference that 10 blankets on 10 children makes is undeniable, so perhaps many companies would think it a worthy cause.

We would love your feedback. Better still if you work for or know of an organisation you know would consider such a charitable donation, could you let us know. You can either contact us on theforum or if you have any ideas about this, please visit the forum in the IDEAS thread.

You can support us in the interim by purchasing anyone of these books, including Roger McDonald's Heart Yarns and LIz Raad's Knitting for Profit. One hundred percent of all sales go directly to support the work we do for the children.

 

KAS has their first corporate sponsor

 

 

Zanthe and Megan from North Balwyn Chiropractics have been ensuring for years that our whole family can continue to work the hours we do at the computer.

Anyone who works long hours on a computer will understand the body issues that plague one as a result. We weren't really made to sit hunched over a little screen for days were we!

They have a gold coin collection for philanthropic purposes and to our delight, decided to dedicate it to knit-a-square. Thank you so much for your support North Balwyn Chiropractics from the whole KAS community. In essence, you are our first Currency of Hope donor.

 

 

Jabulani KhakiBos Kids 6th Anniversary party

 

Ronda and Erin were invited recently to attend the 6th anniversary party of the Jabulani Khakibos Kids. A great deal of work had been done by the boys to entertain their guests, including a welcome in each of the 11 official languages of South Africa, a drama, the singing of the very poignant South African national anthem, Nkosi Sikelel i'Africa and, self taught, the famous South African Gumboot dance.

All of which you can see snippets of in this video here. For those of you involved in the September Challenge , making GO-OVERS™ and blankets for these boys, this will be very poignant as you recognise a few of the names.

The drama entailed the drunken patrons of a pub being robbed of everything, even their shoes and later on an armed robbery. Ronda commented that it is a sad reality of their previous backgrounds that violence features highly in their imaginations, but as she wrote: Happy ending – the Holy Spirit is called upon and renders the firearms useless …. PHEW!

How inspiring that these boys who came from truly perilous backgrounds, now have a home, food, kindness and education as a result of Stephanie Burnett's efforts. And soon they will all have beautiful warm blankets and GO-OVER's as a result of our September Challenge.

Here is a link to the video of the boys entertaining on the occasion of their 6th anniversary. it will only be up on the site until Thursday 30 October.

 

Christmas idea

We have not been successful so far at finding computers for the boys, but we will keep trying. In the meantime, Erin has has promised to help to have three of their broken windows repaired.

Ronda says their calendar is very busy this year and she and Erin suggest it would be appropriate to do Christmas boxes for each of the boys rather than a Christmas Party. We will post a list of desirable items on the KAS Wish List in the forum if you would like to contribute. Erin's friends have committed to at least 10 boxes, so we would need additional contributions for up to 25 boxes.

This is the lovely youngster, Anatjie, who had just arrived at JKK and washed Ronda's car the first time she went to Jabulani.

She said it was wonderful to see how integrated he is now with friends all around him.

We are also going to donate some of the soft knitted teddy bears that Gary from Daylesford, Australia knitted to JKK, because we were told that when the little fellows arrive, they very much need a soft cuddly toy to help them settle in.

 

 

 

St Michael's School, Melbourne embraces knit-a-square

Cressida and I were treated to a service on Friday 23 October, which was deeply touching.

Margaret Fernon introduced Claire Hicks, a teacher at St Michael's School, Melbourne to KAS through an article in the local Archdiocese magazine, Kairos. Between them and with the blessing of Geraldine, the principal, they introduced knit-a-square to the children, their parents and some of the parishioners who set about teaching the children to knit during their school breaks and knitting themselves.

The service was in the beautiful St Michael's church next door to the school. The whole school and many parents and parishioners were there. The children had prepared poems, letters and drawings all dedicated to the orphans and knitting blankets to keep them warm. Groups of them took turns in reading the poems and letters while others lit candles at the base of the altar. Then the children and the community were asked to come forward and lay their squares before the altar. Some of the children looked as young as 5 or 6.

We were greatly moved and wished you had all been with us to witness this warm embrace of the work we are all doing.

Afterwards I gave a short presentation which told the story of knit-a-square and the work you are doing featuring many photographs of the orphans and their blankets. Then it was back to the school for a picnic and more knitting.

Thank you St Michael's School and Community for your involvement in knit-a-square. We hope very much that you and other schools will continue to contribute over the years and in so doing teach the next generation of children about the plight of the orphans in Africa.

 

 

What has 'Death by Cashmere' to do with KAS?

 

What indeed? Sally Goldenbaum, author of the Seaside Knitters mystery series, contacted me recently to say she was appearing at the Boucheron Conference, a yearly event held this year in Indianapolis in early October and attended by most major mystery writers and lots of readers.

She wrote: This year they have invited some of us who write 'craft' mysteries to host one-hour sessions during which we will talk with readers while everyone does a craft. For my session, I am going to have attendees knit squares for your project and also hope to hand out information about your program." We were thrilled as I am sure you are too!

I was doubly delighted when a copy of each of Sally's books arrived, beautifully inscribed.

As I later wrote to Sally, Nell Endicott, aunt of Issy Chamber's who owns the irresistible Seaside Knitting Studio and her friends Birdie and Cass became fast friends in the two short weeks it took to read both books.

I felt bereft when we were forced to part ways on the last page. Sally ensures me we will be re-aquainted in the future, but I will leave her to tell you the really exciting part for knit-a-square.

She wrote of the conference that knit-a-square was much thought about and the workshop was great. "There is a mystery buyer for Barnes & Noble, himself a knitter, who has asked for a kit! And most of the participants are taking the info back to their knitting groups at home."

 

Crochet, Knitting Heroes Webinar Series

Roger and Cressida are currently involved in arranging an online webinar series.

The idea is that we invite fascinating knitting and crochet personalities to be interviewed online.  We hope to schedule five interviews starting in about three weeks and running one each one night for five weeks for our first series.

Our plan is to invite the world’s knitting and crochet heroes, those with influence, talent, passion or who are just plain fascinating because of who they are, to be interviewed online, one at a time.

Once the interviews are complete we will transcribe them into an ebook and audio product. They will then be sold, or given away in exchange for a donation to KasCare, to raise funds for knit-a-square.

We would like to kick off the series with the following who have already shown a strong interest:

• Liz Raad (author of the successful ebook, Knitting for Profit. )

• Sally Goldenbaum (Penguin author of knitting-based mystery novels.)

• Susie Hewer, (holder of Guinness world knitting records.)

• Sandy McDonald (founder of knit-a-square.com).

Others who have been approached and we are waiting to hear from include:

• Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably (legendary color and textile artists, teachers and authors. They have expressed interest in the project.)

• Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (The Yarn Harlot, globally renowned knitting sage, author and humorist)

• Jan Eaton (crochet pattern designer and author)

• Brett Bara (editor, Crochet Today magazine and Stitchy TV host)

• Jess and Casey, (co-founders of the Ravelry website)

• Amy Clarke Moore (editor of Spin-off magazine for yarn spinners).

Invitations to this online event would be sent to everyones’ members by the participant, with a view to exposing each to a greatly increased and highly targeted audience and KAS to hundreds or thousands more knitters and crocheters.

You can listen to these knitting and crochet luminaries as they talk about their work, their craft and careers. Time will be set aside at the end of the interviews for questions online from the audience. The webinar is expected to run for a maximum of 45 minutes.

 

It will help achieve our second goal which is to raise awareness of this mostly hidden and terrible human tragedy and introduce more knitters for more squares and clothes.

Please feel free to suggest other notables on the knitting and crochet stage. People have told us they love the idea. If it proves popular, we will make it a regular part of the calendar.

 

 

The first St Paul's Leaskdale 'Square Off"

 

From Anne Powell, Uxbridge, Canada

October 18 2009: Today at our church, we asked the congregation to participate in the knit-a-square project. Several women in the church have been knitting – and so we appeared this morning, with 670 squares, two blankets, 14 hats…. seeking help with sponsorship for the postage costs.

I had prepared a very short power point presentation to be shown during the service – just a brief explanation of KAS and loaded with some of Ronda’s wonderful photos.

We asked for 50 cents per square, for each square a family wished to send knowing that some of the heavier squares would cost more to send, but knowing too, that given the generosity of folks at St. Paul’s, we would likely “oversubscribe” a bit and this would offset the cost of the heavier squares. We provided a note to be enclosed with each Ziploc of squares – “Made with love by the members and friends of St. Paul’s…. postage sponsored with love by the ________ family”

The squares and a KAS display were set up in the foyer and people chose their squares at coffee time between the two services. Even the children participated – a basket was set at the front of the church and the kids were invited to drop in a dollar or whatever they could to help keep their little African brothers and sisters warm…. and some were brought to our table by their parents to choose the bags of squares they wished to send.

This little event not only has paid for the postage – it has made so many other people aware of the project – I know we have now enlisted several other knitters, people who don’t knit have promised to tell friends who do, I was asked to go speak to our local senior’s group, most of whom are knitters……and as I sat in church watching the congregation during the power point presentation, I could see an awareness of what we are trying to do dawning on a lot of faces, as they looked at the tin shacks and then at the smiles on the blanketed children.

 

Anne's initiative is inspirational. I hope all of you who are part of a church of a community will take up this idea and be as successful.

 

 

 

KAS Sit and Knit

From Debbie Posmontier, Philadelphia

It was a glorious, sunny, fall day here and the Sit and Knit at the Arcadia Flea Market was a success. Lots of people took rulers and fliers and said they'd send squares. A few people sat to knit but most were busy shopping! I found out about 2 knitting circles in the community that I will visit to share information. I also discovered that Arcadia University, where I am an alumni, has a knitting and crafting group. They are interested in KAS and will spread the word.

 

Two acts of kindness

 

Two acts of kindness came our way this month. We received this exquisitely handmade card and knitted teddy bear in the most minute and immaculate GO-OVER™ from Karen Fontana, a moderator in the forum. She sent the gift for knit-a-square's first anniversary which has been nominated as 19 October, the day the home page went live. Thank you Karen. They make us smile whenever we pick them up.

The $200 Australian dollars was given to us by a great personal friend. She wanted to help with postage for the many hundreds of donated squares, teddy bears, scarves, baby blankets and other assorted items that have been piling up in the office and in my mother's spare bedroom over the last months. We are thrilled that they will now be winging their way to the children, courtesy of her kindness.

 

A reversible knitting tote benefits everyone, especially those with HIV AIDS

We have a good friend, Gay Staurup who is a talented felter. She has spent a year, and more, working in a little town called Hamburg on the East Coast of South Africa, with multi talented women in a creative sewing and felting project, run by the Keiskamma Trust.

Keiskamma's vision as a community organisation is: "to foster hope and offer support for the most vulnerable. We strive to address the challenges of widespread poverty and disease through holistic and creative programmes and partnerships. It is our guiding principle that the battle against HIV/AIDS in rural South Africa cannot be won by medical intervention alone."

The women embroider and felt the most incredibly beautiful art pieces, mentored by great embroidery artists from around the world. They created the magnificent Keiskamma Altar Piece which has toured the world.

 

Gay suggested I talk to Florence Danais, the Art project Manager and ask if they would be interested in making knitting totes for the KAS and wider knitting community. We were delighted when they agreed to become involved in the project.

Gay and I set about making a prototype knitting tote which is reversible using lovely African fabrics and in its final form would feature some beautiful embroidery on the front pocket by the women of Keiskamma. Everything went well until I joined the straps the wrong way round – more like a pinafore then a bag! Gay assures me the ladies of Keiskamma will sort out this rather pivotal error.

Florence has received the bag and so fairly soon we hope to see a 'real one' and be able to offer the knitting tote for sale. The benefits are obvious. Both organisations will benefit financially which means we are supported in the work we are doing for those affected or infected by HIV AIDS and you get to own a magnificent hand made and embroidered knitting tote.

 

Spread the word!

 

Where else are you forced to sit for 45 minutes with both hands free? How often have you itched to do something constructive with that time?

Our local hairdresser now offers knitting needles and yarn and KAS rulers so that you can wile away the time while your hair is coloured, by knitting 8" /20cm squares.

Ron Petrucci of Zucci's has agreed to trial the KAShair program for which we are very grateful. He gave me the opportunity to talk to the staff early one morning before the clients arrived and 10 days since then at least 8 squares have been knitted. At that rate one salon could produce at least 8 to10 blankets a year.

imagine if every hair salon in the world took up the program. You could use the Introductory Letter on the resources page to approach your hairdresser.

It was quite a thrill walking past the hair salon on our way home one evening to see through the window two women busily knitting squares.

 

Your Squares arriving

GRAND TOTALS by 22 October (10 month mark) Squares: 38,290, Baby Blankets 220, Sweaters: 573 Beanies: 1784 Vests: 340

Here is the list of all the squares that have arrived between 22 September 09 and 22 October 09. There is are still boxes and boxes arriving, so please do not be concerned it your squares have not yet arrived.

Don't forget you to have a look at the new KAS book review page. A hundred percent of the proceeds from the sales of any of these ebook or physical book products go directly to support our work with the children.

Thank you all for patiently reading this far. I hope you will enjoy part two on Thursday with all your fabulous work. Have a good week until then. And take care, Sandy

The Orphans’ Lament

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Our dear KAS friend,

At the end of this Christmas Video is The Orphans' Lament.

At this time of year, when children are so at the forefront of our minds, through its poignancy it reminds us that there is always hope.

It comes to you with our heartfelt gratitude for all you do to help the children.

When you've watched it, please join us here in the forum to take part in next years' challenges.

We greatly look forward to your company in 2013. You a very valued member of this remarkable KasCommunity and we wish you a wonderful Christmas and a New Year full of goodness.

Sandy, Ronda and the KasTeam worldwide.

PURCHASE OUR 2013 KASCALENDAR
You can purchase our new KasCalendar here.

BECOME A KASCOMMUNITY MEMBER
You can join the Square Circle KasCommunity here.

THE KASPATTERN BOOK
Select your patterns from the KasPattern book on the forum to ensure you send exactly what the children need to keep them the warmest.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE FROM SOUTH AFRICA?
Join us for a discussion on donate a small amount of $5 or more a month to help us keep the operation going in South Africa.

 

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK GROUP

Knit for orphans in Zimbabwe

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Six cousins, several nieces, mothers, fathers, daughters and an aunt. A world of generous, caring, talented stitchers and 2.4 million orphaned and vulnerable children.

Contents
Zimbabwe knit-a-square • A bit of family history • Special needs kids – Amahle Day Care Centre • April Flag Challenge • What's in a size? • News from the forum

Many months have flown since the last edition of Square Circle. Since then, tens of thousands of hands have been busy making squares and stitching blankets so that many thousands of children will be warm this winter in South Africa, who would otherwise have been freezing.

Now, we have some very exciting news!

But first, on behalf of us all, we welcome our new Square Circle members who have joined since last December. You are part of a very special community of people around the world, who care deeply for the plight of all the children left to face a harsh life alone.

Zimbabwe knit-a-square

We are soon to expand our operation into Zimbabwe, officially the poorest country in the world and the birth place and ex-home of the family who founded KasCare and Knit-a-square, its primary program.

While South Africa has the awful tally of an estimated 1.9 million children orphaned, abandoned or made vulnerable as a result of HIV/AIDS and poverty, Zimbabwe's ratio of orphaned children is infinitely higher.

With nearly 1,000,000 orphans alive in 2009, Zimbabwe has the highest number of orphans, in proportion to its population, than any other country in the world, according to UNICEF.

As many as one in four children in Zimbabwe are orphaned as a result of parents dying from AIDS. *Avert.org

The deterioration of this beautiful land and the suffering of its people is of great sadness to the founding family of KasCare and Knit-a-square.

We were all born in Zimbabwe during a time when the ravages of this disease, combined with the rampant poverty of today, were not evident.

It's also deeply painful to those family members who continue to live there and who witness the dreadful degradation of life facing these small children.

We are so heart-warmed, to be able to introduce our world-wide community to the children of Zimbabwe, and to garner your concern, care, love and crafting skills, to help warm and comfort them.

They are among the poorest children in the world and have been most terribly neglected as a result of the political and social situation they've been born into.

A bit of family history
To introduce the family in Zimbabwe who will be working to put blankets around children, let me give you a potted history, especially for those of you who have recently joined or who may have come to the project through channels other than our website.

Ronda and her family live in South Africa. They immigrated there from Zimbabwe in 1984.

Together with her core team of dedicated volunteers and board members, Lindiwe, Wandile, Wendy and younger daughter, Erin (when she can escape from her busy working life and two young children), Ronda runs the day to day operations of knit-a-square in South Africa.

They collect, open, sort and bundle the squares, record their arrival and then organise the stitching and distribution of blankets.

Many other special people have volunteered and continue to do so. Ronda is indebted to all of you who find your way to her home so regularly to open, catalogue and sort the parcels.

Our whole KasCommunity would like to thank you for ensuring their work is so lovingly handled.

Ronda is the youngest of four children. The oldest Zanny (short for Rozanne) is my mother. Roger, my husband and I, left Zimbabwe also in 1984 and moved to Australia with our two daughters, Kalai and Cressida, followed shortly by Zanny.

Kalai currently works two days a week in an administrative and communications capacity for KasCare (the registered charity here in Australia) and Cressida was responsible for developing most of our KasKids™ program (knit-a-square in schools).

Zanny and Ronda's sister, Charmian, lives in the UK and she and her husband Patrick are among our most substantial yearly donors.

The three sisters' brother, Peter, whose untimely death in 2010 prompted one of our most colourful challenges in the forum, has five children, three of whom live in Zimbabwe.

Peter would be entirely delighted to know that the challenge in his honour has been well and truly superseded by our current April Flag Challenge . More about that later, but please make sure you join in, it's fantastic.

Back to Zimbabwe.

Tracey (left) the oldest and Jessica (right) the youngest of Pete's daughters, are preparing to start knit-a-square in Zimbabwe.

The full history of how we started knit-a-square explains how Ronda's visit in 2008 to the our family living in Australia inspired the spark of an idea which resulted in the website and the building of this remarkable community, of which you are one.

There's more detail here, and although this page is just a bit out of date, it has some pictures of Kalai and Cressida as a children and it explains a bit more about how knit-a-square all started!

Like everything that happens in KAS, it's an organic process.

Many threads have been woven together toward this next, but necessarily small step.

Karen from the Methodist church in Atlanta, Georgia wrote about the possibility of of sending squares directly to their Church contacts in Zimbabwe.

The South African branch of the American company Cummins, a global leader in design, manufacture and servicing of diesel engines contacted Ronda to express interest in helping our work. Our hope is that this will eventuate in transport of the squares to Zimbabwe, volunteering and spreading the word through their USA branch and help in Zimbabwe through their Zimbabwean branch.

Wendy and Ronda are meeting with them again soon in Johannesburg.

Girls from Chisipite Senior School, ex-school of Zanny, Jessica,and me, have offered to stitch the first blankets.

Tracey and Jessica have made contact with an orphanage in a small town called Chitungwisa (chit-en-gweez-a) home to 20 children, around whom we can wrap the first blankets.

Erin to show the ropes
To help Tracey and Jess get started, we are hoping to fly Erin up to Zimbabwe to work with them to put together the processes that lead from squares to blankets to distribution. She will also take with her a repaired camera, so that Tracey and Jess can capture the results of your work and help tell the stories of the children.

This will allow us all to continue to spread the word about the dire situation that faces so many children in Zimbabwe.

We really need your help!

We hope that this appeal to help us warm the children of Zimbabwe will be met with your generosity. We hope too, that it will assist us to pay for Erin to go to Zimbabwe to get the project under way.

We would also like to give some special support to Amahle Day Care Centre, as explained below.

You need only add a dollar to the amount of your monthly donations to help us achieve that. If you don't yet donate, please consider a small monthly amount of $10 (the price of just three cups of coffee a month), to help us continue our work in South Africa and get the Zimbabwe project underway.

You can donate here.

A small recurring monthly amount will make an enormous difference to what we achieve on the ground in South Africa, if you make the commitment to help today.

Amahle Day Care Centre

Amahle (A-ma-lay) is in Protea South, opposite this tiny church, first shown in our ezine Hats on heads and snuggly wrapped children.

Amahle is special in terms of the creches we have distributed to and we would dearly love to make a very particular effort to support it and Ntabiseng who set it up.

As she has a Downe syndrome child of her own she started the day care centre with the idea of taking on as many special needs children as possible.  There is precious little support for these children and even less if they have lost a parent.

When Ronda, Wandi and Lindi went to distribute the blankets to Amahle, they wrapped blankets around small children who were autistic, had epilepsy or Downe syndrome.

Ntabiseng is so proud of all she has managed to do, although she told Ronda that more than half the carers cannot pay for the children.  She works very hard to give the children nutritional meals every day, although it is a struggle financially.

Ronda wrote with a heavy heart that she was fearful that Ntabiseng may not be able to continue without support. This little oasis for these heavily disadvantaged children requires our special attention. We greatly hope everyone reading this will see it as an opportunity to give generously for a specific cause. You can donate here.

Ntabiseng was absolutely filled with joy at our gifts for the children, the blankets, hats, vests, toys and some stationery as expressed in this video.

 

As an aside, Ronda has mentioned we are low on stationery. Our 'slip-in' mission has done so wonderfully to ensure that they are usually able to take pencils, paper, books and other bits of stationery whenever we distribute. The carers are always so delighted for this support.

Humble Little Achievers Day Care Centre
The photographs of this distribution are so touching of the children with their toys, wrapped in their beautiful blankets, we have posted the whole album on our Facebook Group and many more of the Amahle distribution as well.

You can spend ages looking at each little face, so often redolent of an emotion which is part joy, part sadness. When they smile, their little faces light up and in doing so they remind us so poignantly of why what you do is so valuable.

KasCuddles

Ronda said these little ones in their KasCuddles were like dear little caccooned creatures, wiggling across the room!

April Flag Challenge
No one who loves stitching (knitting or crochet) should miss this challenge. Look at this work of art!

The challenge is being run by Mary Lokken, one of our moderators and a very generous and talented contributor. It is generating the most amazing responses. Flags from all over the world, even the most obscure little islands are being lovingly made. The children will be kept warm and have a geography lesson at the same time!

Please come on in and join us. Joining the forum is free, it's great fun and the KasCommunity is warm, vibrant, creative, caring and just plain extraordinary. We are continually in awe of what they do, how they help us, each other, and of course, the children.

It is so much more than knitting or crocheting squares, as beautiful as they are. The community experience is greater than that as Pam Antink, administrator in the forum explained: " The international aspect of the Flag challenge has made people look outside their own country and engage with others – this is brilliant and will continue the process of breaking down barriers between nations."

What's in a size?
Ronda has been troubled for a while now about the tiny weeny hats we are receiving in abundance. The reality is that the size of children's heads are almost as large as adult heads. She has sent this photograph as an indication of the correct size.

Also there a current Wish List in the forum you may wish to review. Linda Matlby and Carol Playford (moderators from Canada and the UK respectively) are compiling the definitive KasPattern book and we hope to bring that to you sometime soon.

News from the forum
Pam Antink has been doing a great deal of work behind the scenes to gather KasFolk from all around the world to help us do certain tasks on the forum and in general where we can identify a specific need. She is still working through the process, but we will publish a list of everyone involved and tasks they may have agreed to undertake on the forum soon.

Monthly newsletter
Pam has also undertaken to keep the community informed of monthly KasNews in a broadcast newsletter of the same name. You need to be a member of the forum to receive this, so please join up today.

Links to photographs of the distributions, the challenges, special photographs or videos in the forum and knitting patterns will all be included over time as well as member stories. If you are running an event for KAS or have introduced it to your school or community, please let Pam know in the forum.

Joining The Square Circle Forum is truly a great contribution you can make to KAS over and above stitching.

The more members, the more we will be found by others. The more activity on the forum, the more Google will reward us by ensuring the forum is found by other knitters and crocheters looking to knit for charity.

Remember, every last stitch, every cent on postage, every appeal, newsletter, photograph, event, challenge, indeed every effort by KAS or on behalf of KAS is done for the children.

All For Orphans
“The silence that surrounds children affected by HIV/AIDS and the inaction that results is morally reprehensible and unacceptable. If this situation is not addressed, and not addressed now with increased urgency, millions of children will continue to die, and tens of millions more will be further marginalised, stigmatised, malnourished, uneducated, and psychologically damaged.” Carol Bellamy (a former Executive Director of UNICEF.)

This statement has prompted my return to posting in All for Orphans. The hope is that I can be less sporadic as I will explain in the first article after some time to be posted on Wednesday 11 April.

Their are so many hopeful stories emanating from all over southern Africa as remarkable people set about addressing this dreadful tragedy. It will be a joy to report on these for you. If you want to follow this news about the children we care so much about, please visit the site and click the subscribe button.

Every child around whom we wrap a blanket on your behalf is told, "You're unique and special and you have a role to play in your country."

We cannot return their parents, or cure them of disease, nor can we ensure their safety, but we can warm and comfort them. By continuing to grow our currency of hope, build our community and raise awareness of the issue, we make a difference one square at a time. And we can do yet more.

Please consider our two appeals this Easter Monday and give as generously as you can afford. We are, as always, indebted to you, our beloved and remarkable KasCommunity.

Sandy