Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! This past Saturday, we were able to take part in the festivities at the annual Trunk or Treat event hosted by the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at Metrocare. We are thankful to all the wonderful and welcoming staff there for allowing T.H.R.I.V.E. Association to join in on bringing the good vibes and candy to the veteran families in our local community!
Happy Saturday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! DFW Fiber Fest 2023 is in full swing all weekend long at the Irving Convention Center in Las Colinas and is THE place to be for all crafters in the DFW area. We’ve got a booth set up behind the main information desk, so stop on by; we’d love to see you!
Happy Halloween, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! We hope you have a very safe and happy holiday! Many thanks to the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at Metrocare for inviting us to take part in their annual Trunk or Treat event; we had a great time contributing to the festivities!
Happy Holidays, T.H.R.I.V.E. family! Thank you for coming out to support us at the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth. We still have several mystery gift boxes and stress footballs, so please head on over to our online gift shop at https://thrivevets.square.site to continue to support our cause of helping to end homelessness among our veterans and their dependents. All donations are tax deductible and greatly appreciated!
This past Sunday, October 24, T.H.R.I.V.E. Association was thrilled to be able to participate in the Trunk or Treat event held by our wonderful partners at the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at Metrocare. We had a great time giving out word searches, sweets, fun, and good vibes! Thanks for having us; we had a ball!
Happy Halloween! We are hard at work preparing for the upcoming Stand Down being held in Dallas, Texas on November 7th. With an estimated turn out of 400-500 homeless veterans (plus more for dependents), it is looking to be the largest Stand Down that we are serving all year! With that being said, we need you to send in any last donations that you are working on as soon as possible. We will weave in any loose ends and wet block all garments. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. We appreciate your continued support and wish you a positively frightful Halloween!
2017 was a great year for T.H.R.I.V.E. Association! We are proud to have participated in many amazing Stand Downs around the Metroplex. Although we had record numbers of veterans, we were still able to ensure that each veteran and/or dependent who came though our line was served and is now the proud wearer of a handmade hat and/or scarf.
These Stand Downs left us with beautiful and moving experiences that we will carry with us for all time. It was a joy to see many of our dear veterans walking around proudly wearing their newly acquired handmade goods, all the while keeping our “handmade with love” tags visible to all. So many of the people that we served were deeply touched by the fact that our items were handcrafted and were grateful that our volunteers took the time and effort to make them. For instance, one of the gentlemen equated his new hat to his treasured grandmother-made blanket, which told us he carried with him in his backpack. These gifts really do enhance their morale and are deeply cherished.
We have many Stand Downs on the horizon this year, so there is still time to make items for our veterans. Please keep sending in your handmade hats, scarves, etc. so that we can continue to support our veterans and their dependents!
We have partnered with the Tarrant County Jail to teach the incarcerated women to knit and crochet. Our goal is to give these wonderful ladies valuable skills which they can take with them through life, while also having them help us in our mission to provide handmade goods for our homeless military veterans and those whom they support. So far, we are off to a fantastic start!
These sweet ladies are really enjoying the class and in only a month of meeting for 2 hours twice a week, they have already made significant progress. In fact, they are already working on their first scarves for our veterans! We are so very proud!
In closing this blog, we’d like to also offer a very special thank you to Captain Lonnie T. Dunham of the Tarrant County Jail for his kindness and his perseverance in helping us (in more ways than we can count) and those under his care. We are truly grateful for all of his amazing support.
We would like to take a moment to say goodbye to a beloved mother, friend, and devoted volunteer, Mrs. Anne Walker. She had been with T.H.R.I.V.E. Association almost from the beginning and had championed our cause at every opportunity. She will be remembered for her warm hugs, perseverance, and her maternal love for all of us. Rest in peace, Mom. We love you.
Mrs. Anne Walker: September 1964- August 2017
This week’s free pattern is a beautiful set, developed by Drops, called “Florence”. Although we admit that this pattern took a bit more concentration, it was very rewarding and well worth the time! The garment is simply stunning! And, despite its appearance, it is incredibly warm.
Please click the link below to get your copy of the pattern:
https://www.garnstudio.com/pattern.php?id=5284&cid=17
Also, as a bonus, there are how-to videos on the page to help you with many of the needed techniques!
In closing for this week, we have a few general announcements. As we get closer to the colder months, please make sure to start sending in any donations that you want to receive credit for this year so that we can catalogue them and ensure that they are sent out to upcoming Stand Downs. Further, as many of our volunteers have asked, we are no longer hosting the Friday Night Craft-a-thon at Half Priced Books. (We know that fighting Dallas rush hour traffic on a Friday night can be treacherous!) Please note that we do have many other community crafting events and will continue to develop more, so stay tuned. Also, we are developing a map of all of the Stand Downs that we partner with across the U.S. and its territories. This map will contain several key pieces of information about the demographics of the veterans and their families. Additionally, we do get wish lists from each Stand Down which help us set our goals. Our aim here is to be as transparent as possible to our volunteers and community partners. Also, we hope that these resources will aid our volunteers in knowing what to make and help them decide where they would like their goods to go.
Thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers and donors for making this a very successful year so far! We certainly met our goal thanks to everyone’s hard work! But, we’re not done yet! Not by a mile. In fact, we’re just getting started! We’re going to get a head start on next year- starting this Friday. So with that, we’ll be meeting this Friday as usual for our Craft-a-thon!
Half Price Books at 5803 Northwest Hwy, Dallas, TX 75231 on 11/18/16 from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm
Check out our event on Facebook or reply in the comment section below if you’d like to come craft with our T.H.R.I.V.E. volunteers. We look forward to seeing everyone out there!