Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

I work as a Librarian in a dual language school that serves deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students. For the past two years I have worked with students to teach them the skills they need to crochet and knit. At the beginning, the focus was on basic skills but as the students have mastered these, they have progressed to harder projects. It is not unusual for our students to look through the knitting books in the library and select a pattern that is a bit of a reach for them. I sit with them to help them begin the project and then monitor their progress. Each day, they show up at lunch or at our weekly club time holding their knitting bags and showing me what they have managed to accomplish on their own at home. Sometimes, they bring along their friends who want to learn to knit or crochet. These new students end up joining the club and need their own materials and guidance. Supplies are always limited. The needles and yarn are kept in the library and the students come by to select what they need for their latest projects. With some money from the principal I managed to buy enough needles to rotate among the students but for the yarn, since it cannot be reused, I have had to rely on donations or my own money. Since my students have limited spending money of their own, they have never visited a yarn store on their own, and would not be able to afford it if they did. The more resourceful students have discovered the bargain stores but even there, it gets expensive to get enough yarn for their projects. For them, the shelves in the library are their only yarn store. I love seeing the look on their faces as they finger the various yarns and choose the one they like most. I find it very hard to send students away without yarn but I cannot afford to stock enough to supply them. I am constantly in danger of running out of yarn and being unable to teach new skills to my students, or even being able to teach new students the basic skills. Several students are eager to make sweaters or blankets but I have to discourage them as we do not have enough yarn for to complete those projects. What I have discovered over the past two years is that students are learning far more than just a set of crafting skills. They also learn to slow down and focus on something small. In doing so, they are able to relax. They start conversations among themselves and with the teachers supervising the club. The conversations are less structured than a classroom discussion but can be just as full of teachable moments. The students become calmer and more focused, with the ability to sustain longer spans of attention as they progress to working on harder projects. This teaches them patience and problem solving skills, as they sometimes must figure out directions on their own instead of relying on me to explain them. If I run out of yarn, the knitting and crochet program is seriously in danger. It would be terrible to have to turn away students or to limit their choice of projects just because I do not have enough yarn. Your donation will make it possible for my students to continue to learn and acquire skills. Without you, it would be impossible.