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).

Thank You, DFW Fiber Fest!

Published: August 31, 2026 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family. We’d like to extend a big thanks to DFW Fiber Fest for once again allowing us to share our mission with our wonderful DFW crafting community! We always look forward to making it to this amazing event every year and we had a great time meeting with you all and collecting your generous donations. Every beautifully handcrafted gift will be cherished by our veteran community and every dollar given will go towards accomplishing our mission nationwide. We are truly grateful to you all!

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!

Our Goal for December

Published: November 17, 2025 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! There are still veterans in need and we’ve already got request lists from our partner Stand Downs for 2026. We have an ambitious goal to reach 600 lovely hand crafted hats, scarves, mittens, etc. by December 31st. Many of these veterans live in very cold areas of our Nation. Please help us to reach our goal to support the veterans and their dependents who are under the care of our partner V.A.s.

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.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Published: October 27, 2025 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family! The Dallas Stand Down was a phenomenal success and all of your beautifully handcrafted gifts were a huge hit at the event! The veterans and their dependents really treasured them! We want to take this opportunity to express our deepest gratitude to all of our amazing donors, crafters, volunteers, staff, and community partners. Thank you for all that you do to help us achieve our mission.

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.

Dallas Stand Down

Published: October 13, 2025 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family. Happy Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
If you are lucky enough to have the day off, today is a fine day to sit in your favorite chair and craft.
The Dallas VA’s Stand Down is coming up next week! They were our first partner Stand Down and we love supporting them in their efforts to end homelessness among their veteran community. Please help us meet our goal of 200 lovingly handcrafted hats and scarves for the veterans and their dependents who will be attending the Dallas Stand Down.

Our Chief Executive Officer, Victoria, will be in Dallas the day before the Stand Down to prepare our booth and to collect donations from our faithful volunteers in the DFW area. If you would like to donate a lovingly handcrafted gift to support our cause to end homelessness among our veteran community, please contact us so that we can make arrangements for a pick up on October 22, 2025.

Thank You, DFW Fiber Fest!

Published: September 22, 2025 ~ 0

Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family. We would like to thank DFW Fiber Fest for graciously hosting once again this year! We are so grateful that we had the opportunity to take part in this amazing event! We had a great time meeting and chatting with our fellow crafters and getting to know them.

Thanks to everyone’s generosity, we were able to collect so many beautifully handcrafted gifts that will be deeply cherished by our veteran community! We cannot thank you all enough!

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!