Thank You Staff Members!

Happy Monday dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! We want to thank the members of our dedicated staff who spent their weekend crafting for our partner V.A. in Anchorage, Alaska. Their hard work and dedication to T.H.R.I.V.E. Association’s mission is second to none. A heartfelt thanks to all of you! We are so grateful for all that you do!

As we said in our post last week, our goal is to take at least 150 hats and scarves, and 20 blankets to the Anchorage V.A. These gifts are always deeply treasured by the veterans and their dependents. We have heard both from the veterans themselves and also from VA staff and other Community partners that our lovingly handcrafted gifts really do encourage the veterans and make them feel appreciated and loved. Our gifts are more than the sum of the parts; what makes them special is that they are handmade by the T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family of crafters with love and appreciation.

If you don’t craft, but want to help, please make a tax-deductible monetary donation to help cover the travel costs. Alternatively, if you would like to make an in-kind gift, we need Lion Brand Pound of Love yarn. Just one of these one-pound balls of yarn can easily make up to six warm double thick hats!  


We need hats, scarves, and blankets for Anchorage!

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! Our C.E.O. is going back to Anchorage, Alaska for the V.A.’s annual VSO (Veteran Service Organizations) Day on July 15, 2026. We love meeting with the veterans and their families and letting them know that we’re here and how we support them as they recover from homelessness. The Anchorage VA and their veteran community are near and dear to us. Alaska has a very large homeless veteran population and we make it our mission to help reduce those numbers by providing our handmade gifts to the veterans as they work to get back on their feet. 

Our goal is to take at least 150 hats and scarves, and 20 blankets to the Anchorage VA. These gifts are always deeply treasured by the veterans and their dependents. We have heard both from the veterans themselves and also from VA staff and other Community partners that our lovingly handcrafted gifts really do encourage the veterans and make them feel appreciated and loved. Our gifts are more than the sum of the parts; what makes them special is that they are handmade by the T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family of crafters with love and appreciation.

If you don’t craft, but want to help, please make a tax-deductible monetary donation to help cover the travel costs. Alternatively, if you would like to make an in-kind gift, we need Lion Brand Pound of Love yarn. Just one of these one-pound balls of yarn can easily make up to six warm double thick hats!  


Upcoming Stand Downs

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! Many of our long-time partner Stand Downs have been sending us their wish lists for T.H.R.I.V.E. Association’s handcrafted gifts for their upcoming Stand Downs. As usual, we’ve set a goal for ourselves to create the most impact with the help of our very talented crafters. Currently, we need 500 hats, scarves, mittens, etc to meet the needs of our homeless veteran community that will be attending these Stand Downs. Additionally, we need 20 lap blankets for wheelchair users, and 70 children sized hats and scarves.

If you need inspiration, please feel free to look around on our blog. We have shared many free patterns throughout the years. Many of these patterns can be found on Yarnspirations.com. They have been a great partner since the very beginning of our formation. And, for the next few days every pattern downloaded from their website Yarnspirations will donate to Warm Up America (another cherished community partner).


Thank You, Warm Up America!

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! We would like to send a special shoutout to our wonderful community partners at Warm Up America!, whom we had the great privilege to meet at DFW Fiber Fest 2025. We are truly grateful for their support and the generous donation of beautiful handmade blankets for our veteran community. Visit their website at warmupamerica.org to learn more about their mission and efforts.


The Red Heart Ribbed Knit Beanie and the Brioche Scarf

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family. We need hats and scarves for the upcoming Stand Down events, so keep sending in your donations. The Brioche stitch makes for a wonderful, stretchy scarf; just make sure to meet 60 inches (152cm) in length and at minimum 6 inches (15cm) in width for all of your donated scarves! If you’re looking for a go-to hat pattern to knit, the Red Heart Ribbed Knit Beanie is a favorite amongst our veterans and it really makes our most popular color, camouflage, shine. Even though it is marked as intermediate, we feel this is a great pattern to practice your knit and purl stitches. If you are looking for a project to donate that will assuredly be a hit with the veterans and their dependents at one of the many upcoming stand downs, please follow the link below to get your free copy of this great pattern!