Stuffing 72 Backpacks - Part 1

All 72 backpacks are stuffed and are almost ready to go to the parks for the Homeless people for Christmas, except for adding all the cookies, which I will do in a few days, so they will be fresh.  :)
We will deliver everything on Saturday, December 28th, along with a great big Christmas dinner.  :) 

It took seven of us close to four hours to get it all done and you can see photos below of the before and after.   :)  Thank you Sue, Marilyn, Laura & Steve, Cristina & your brother Gabe, for putting your whole hearts into this !!   :)   What a team you all were !!  :)   I am amazed !!

We packed those bags full of 60 hand crochet beanies by Cheryl, who has been working on them this whole year.  :)  She is now crocheting more already for next years Christmas.   :)

K.C. motivated many people in her Crafts Club to knit scarves for the Homeless and here are some of their stories:

Laurie Mullins works on scarves when her leg hurts too much to do anything else.  She finds some yarn in her stash and then spends the day in bed working on scarves.  :)

Tina Roose learned how to crochet on YouTube.  She buys yarn at Goodwill and practices by making scarves.  :)

Patricia Gellin has made the scarves during her lunch break.  :)

Lori Blew began to crochet again after a 20 year hiatus to make these scarves.  :)

Ian, Lori's husband, "brochets" and does a scarf every now and then to clean his pallet between projects.   :)

Margaret Newman just loves to crochet and feels she should use up her stash, because that way she can get more yarn.   :)

Sue Lynn Halloway Turner who just read about the project of the scarves on Facebook, made a few and mailed them from Texas.  :)

Kelsey Henderson did the same and made a few.  :)

KarenYasher made several and would have done more but found out that two of her nieces were having babies.  So she knitted baby stuff instead.  :)  Congratulations !!

And K.C., who does not like to knit at all, bought a few to donate.  :)

June, from Hilde's knitting club, made two bunches also, so we had enough for each backpack.   :)

Thank you to all you kind souls for your beautiful work & the loving dedication to this project of keeping the Homeless a lil' warmer this year.   :)  

Randy Seligmann of Chiral Research, donated warm socks and warm gloves, along with a gift card to Fry's, which helped so much with buying the candy and some food.   :) 

Eleanor Miller donated money and I was able to buy the T-shirts and sweatshirts with it.  :)

A very, very generous donation from the BSD Winers & Diners helped with being able to get all the men's and women's underwear, the backpacks, and a lot of odds and ends that were still needed.   :)

The Ahmidiya Muslim Community here in Tucson just blew me away again this year by donating 65 each of the Deodorants, Shampoo, Conditioners, Shaving Cream, Razors, Bars of Soap, Decks of Playing Cards, Candy, Chocolates, some Used Books and Magazines, some Toothpastes and Toothbrushes.  And the children of the Mosque with the help of Ulliya made many hand-made and very precious Christmas cards to stuff into the backpacks.  :)  

Pat Bovine too wrote a lot of Christmas cards again this year and she mailed them to me all the way from Arkansas this year.  Pat, this is becoming a tradition for you.   :)

The children of the Boys & Girls Club of Tucson made a lot of cards too with the help of Jasmine there.   :)

Ashley Brock's First Graders made cards too and it was kind of hard for me to part with them.  :)  They were just really adorable & their spelling was the cutest ever.   :)

Many different items were donated by the sweet Ladies from the St. Joseph Rosary Makers.  It was so nice to finally meet you all and to be able to spend a little time with you.   :)   Thank you Elena for always being the "Instigator" for all these Kindnesses.   :)   And it was wonderful to be able to take all those warm jackets to the Homeless people too right around the time it got so cold.   :)  

Big thanks to each and everyone of you for helping make all of this possible & for your beautiful, open and caring Hearts !!   :)

To be continued .............