Thank You, WV & KY! Next Stop: TX!

Published: October 12, 2026 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family. We had such a wonderful time serving the homeless military veteran communities at their respective Stand Downs in West Virginia and Kentucky. We still have the Dallas, TX Stand Down coming up this month. It’s one of the largest Stand Downs that we serve and, like West Virginia, is one of our longest partnerships. Please keep those hats, scarves, and mittens coming in; they really do make a huge impact on the morale and comfort of the veterans and their dependents who attend.

If you’d like to donate a hat, scarf, mittens, or other handcrafted garment to our cause, please remember that the dear veterans and their dependents prefer dark colors, e.g. blue, black, green, grey, and all-time favorite, camouflage. If you would like to knit, crochet, or sew a garment in a brighter color, red or deep purple are always popular bright colors. We cannot emphasize this important point enough: please do not use sparkly or overly decorative yarns and fabrics. While they have their place, they are simply inappropriate for the veterans and their dependents (including children because of potential choking hazards).

If you are not a crafter, but would like to help, there are still many ways to support our cause! Please consider donating materials and/or making a monetary donation to help us cover the costs of materials, shipping, and overhead.

If you have donations within Baltimore or the DMV area, please contact us to schedule a pickup. If you reside outside of the Baltimore, MD or the DMV area and would like to make an in-kind donation, you can send your donations to us at:

Care of: Victoria Walker at T.H.R.I.V.E. Association
900 E Fayette St #1583
Baltimore, MD 21233

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. Remember, even one lovingly handcrafted hat or scarf can make a huge difference in the life of an underprivileged veteran or their dependent(s).

Meet Us at DFW Fiber Fest 2026!

Published: August 17, 2026 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! We’ll be at DFW Fiber Fest on August 29-30! The event is being held on August 28-30 at the Irving Convention Center in Las Colinas. For those unfamiliar, the event is a great opportunity to meet fellow crafters, learn valuable crafting skills, shop unique materials and tools, and also to meet with your local non-profits, like us at T.H.R.I.V.E. Association! We’ll have a booth set up to share our mission of benefiting our nation’s underprivileged military veterans and their dependents with our local crafting community and we will also be collecting your beautifully handcrafted hats, scarves, mittens, etc. and yarn for the upcoming Stand Downs! Come on down and check us out!

Attention Faithful Crafters!

Published: March 30, 2026 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family. Our long time partners and dear friends at the Anchorage, AK VA are in need of hats and scarves. We’re going back to Alaska soon for the annual event held there and we’ll be bringing donated garments to distribute to their homeless veteran community on their road to recovery. Our goal is to bring 200 warm hats and scarves to this event and we need your help! We can personally attest to the cold weather there in Alaska, even the cold nights in the summer. So please start sending in your lovingly handcrafted hats and scarves to us here at T.H.R.I.V.E. HQ as soon as you can to benefit the wonderful veteran community in this beautiful state!

Gift-giving Season

Published: November 3, 2025 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! The holidays are approaching, and we’re all thinking about gift-giving. We’re all making our lists and checking them twice, finding out, of course, that everyone in the T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family has been pretty nice.

Please kindly consider giving a tax-deductible monetary gift to support our Mission in your loved one’s name. Alternatively, how about making an anonymous gift to support our cause for Secret Santa in your work place?

We also have several wonderful gifts in our web shop. Why not consider showing your T.H.R.I.V.E. spirit with some of our ever popular T-shirts and wristbands? Our stress footballs are also in stock and make for great stocking stuffers!

Great News! You Can Send Donations via UPS & FedEx to Our P.O. Box!

Published: October 20, 2025 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! The Dallas, TX Stand Down is this week! It is one of our biggest Stand Downs and one of our long-time partners. Not to show favoritism or anything, but we will always have a soft spot for our hometown! On that note, we are still accepting donations for this event. If you are in the DFW area and would like to donate to our cause, Victoria will be in Dallas the day before the Stand Down, October 22, to collect your lovingly handcrafted gifts. Please reach out as soon as you can so that we can make arrangements for pickup on that day.

We also had a few concerns from our amazing community about sending their donations to our P.O. Box. But never fear – we’ve got you! We’ve done our homework and even did some test runs. We can categorically state that, yes, you can send your amazingly beautiful, handcrafted gifts to our P.O. Box. We want to make donating even easier for you — especially if you’ve ever scratched your head wondering how to send packages to a P.O. Box using UPS or FedEx.

Here’s the scoop: Yes, you absolutely can send donations via UPS and FedEx to our P.O. Box. Thanks to a helpful USPS service called Street Addressing, we’re able to receive both postal mail and packages from private carriers like UPS and FedEx.

How Does It Work, you ask? It’s easy, here’s how:

Instead of writing just “P.O. Box 1583,” you’ll format the address like this:

T.H.R.I.V.E. Association C/O Victoria Walker
900 E Fayette Street #1583
Baltimore, MD 21233

The key is using the physical street address of the post office, followed by our box number preceded by a “#” (not “P.O. Box”).

This tells the driver to deliver it to the post office building, and USPS will place the package safely in our box or hold it for us to pick up.

Why This Is Awesome for our Amazing Donors:

More shipping options: Use your favorite carrier or choose the most affordable one.
Fewer returned packages: No more “undeliverable” errors from online forms that reject P.O. Boxes.
Smoother donations: Especially helpful if you’re mailing bulk items or larger donations.

As always, we are beyond grateful for your kindness, generosity, and support. Every package, every donation, every gesture — it all makes a huge difference in helping us accomplish our mission to end veteran homelessness.

Come See Us at DFW Fiber Fest!

Published: September 15, 2025 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! We’re at DFW Fiber Fest this week! It’s being held on September 19-21 at the Irving Convention Center in Las Colinas. For those unfamiliar, the event is a great opportunity to meet fellow crafters, learn valuable crafting skills, shop unique materials and tools, and also to meet with your local non-profits, like us at T.H.R.I.V.E. Association! Like last year, we’ll have a booth set up to share our mission of benefiting our nation’s underprivileged military veterans and their dependents with our local crafting community and we will also be collecting your beautifully handcrafted hats, scarves, mittens, etc. and yarn for the upcoming Stand Downs! We’re bringing our popular wristbands and lollipops, so come on down and check us out!

Stand Downs and Fiber Fest!

Published: September 8, 2025 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family. We have several Stand Downs happening in quick succession this month and we need your help! We are several hundred handmade hats short of our goal for these Stand Downs. Please keep your amazing handcrafted gifts coming in; They are desperately needed and dearly loved by the veterans and their dependents who receive them!

We will be at DFW Fiber Fest in Texas held at the Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas on September 19-21, 2025, doing some awesome community building and collecting donations of hats, scarves, etc. We hope to see all of you there! It is always so much fun and a great experience!

Package Sent to Washington

Published: August 25, 2025 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear THRIVE Association family. Last week we sent a package containing 200 of our lovingly handcrafted gifts to the Stand Down held in Vancouver, Washington. We are so honored to serve this great community!

Thank you to all our volunteers and donors! We couldn’t do any of this wonderful work without you!

We Need Your Help

Published: August 18, 2025 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! Many of our partners’ Stand Downs are taking place in September and we desperately need your help to accomplish our mission. Many of these Stand Downs are in very cold areas of our great Nation. Please help us to reach our goal of 400 handcrafted hats, scarves, etc. to support the underprivileged veterans and their dependents that are anticipated to attend these Stand Downs.

Stand Downs are very effective at helping veterans recover from homelessness, and we love supporting them in their efforts. We have had several veterans who have attended Stand Downs in the past, received our gifts, and are now recovered sufficiently to volunteer/donate to our cause. Lets keep that momentum going!

If you would like to help our cause to end veteran homelessness, but are not a crafter, please consider making a tax-deductible monetary donation to cover the cost of shipping our gifts to our partner Stand Downs. Often these shipping costs are several hundred dollars, so every dollar helps.

Stand Downs are Coming Up!

Published: July 21, 2025 ~ 0

Happy Monday dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! With many Stand Downs right around the corner, we desperately need your help to accomplish our mission. Many of these Stand Downs are in very cold areas of our great Nation. Please help us to reach our goal of 400 handcrafted hats, scarves, etc. to support the veterans and their dependents that are anticipated to attend these Stand Downs.