The call for booties for a Peace Corps volunteer project—Knitting for Nutrition— was very successful. Cook County exceeded its goal of knitting 100 booties. Local project organizer Karen Lohn packed up 108 pairs of booties for the project.
Karen Lohn, a local educator, psychologist and author, recently asked the community to join her in the challenge of knitting 100 baby booties by December 28. The woman who wrote Peace Fibres: Living Peace in Tumultuous Times, created a little chaos in her home over the holidays, all for a great cause called “Knitting for Nutrition.”
On December 26, Lohn happily informed the Cook County News-Herald that the community had taken her up on the challenge and she was packaging 108 pairs of booties to be sent to Burkina Faso, Africa—along with booties from all over the country, reaching a goal of 500 pairs of booties for the project.
The reason for the booties? Peace Corps volunteers will use them to entice mothers in Burkina Faso to attend nutritional education classes. As volunteer Hilary explains on the website www.knittingfornutrition.com, although some young children are truly starving in Africa, many others are suffering from malnutrition—a reversible situation. With proper education, the mothers of Burkina Faso can learn how a balanced diet can save their children in the critical time after they stop breastfeeding.
However, Hilary had difficulty convincing mothers to visit her. She wrote: “In a village so poor that children do not own shoes, booties are highly coveted. Those given to babies at a ‘Knitting for Nutrition’ seminar are likely the only pair they will own in a lifetime. Because of this, moms will be excited to attend a training that takes care of their baby’s clothing needs by giving them booties—and through the seminar they will learn valuable information that will assist them in meeting their child’s nutritional needs as well. Information is power–and this type of information can save a baby’s life.”
Lohn was overwhelmed with the local response and her house soon became a clearinghouse for booties. Some people came by to visit and knit; others picked up the pattern and made beautiful booties at home. But however it was done, the community responded and answered the call to help babies in Burkina Faso.
Peace Corps volunteer Roanna, who is coordinating the shipment of booties to Africa, was overjoyed to hear that Grand Marais had exceeded its goal. To Lohn, she wrote, “Your town is amazing! Please, please, please tell them thank you….Thank you so much for your act of love and service toward these precious babies!”
The volunteers will eventually post photos of the babies who attend the nutritional workshops on-line at knittingfor nutrition.com. However, it will be several months—there is no electricity in Burkino Faso, so updates will have to wait until the Peace Corps volunteers are back in Italy or the United States.
In the meantime, local knitters can be proud of the part they played in helping the babies far away in Burkino Faso.
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