Our 2011 service project was announced at the January meeting. Biz the Clown entertained us as he talked about our project to knit chemo caps for cancer patients.

This year’s service project is dedicated to Carrie Bartz.She was the MKG Secretary who passed away in the summer of 2010. One of the charity knitting causes that Carrie was involved in was knitting chemo caps for oncology patients. One of those recipients made sure that we knew the cap she was wearing at Carrie’s memorial service had been knitted by Carrie.

We are working with the American Cancer Society to donate the chemo caps in Duluth, Minneapolis, Rochester and St Paul. The ACS will be handing out the caps at their local offices, their sponsored Hope Lodges (Rochester & Minneapolis), SMDC (Duluth), HCMC (Minneapolis), Mayo (Rochester) and United (St Paul).

Our goal is to knit 400 chemo caps (100 for each city). We have a thermometer showing our progress and we will reveal the ongoing tally at each meeting.

We are having a contest for members, with prizes for the top 2 winners each half year. The contest will be for who donates the most chemo caps each half year. The winners will be announced and prizes awarded at the July (picnic) and December (potluck) meetings. I will bring all the chemo caps donated each half year to the award meetings, so everyone can see and touch the caps. I’ll be accepting chemo caps at each meeting, so you can bring them in when ever you have a cap done, you don’t have to save them until one of the award meetings.

If you won’t be able to bring the chemo caps to a meeting, or have friends who would like to contribute, but don’t come to meetings, we will have a box at Yarnover for donations. We will also have this box at all the events that MKG volunteer’s for this year.

We have a list of suggested yarn (soft & elastic) on our service blog (http://mnknittersguild.wordpress.com). We also have links for web sites that have patterns for chemo caps. We want to make sure that these chemo caps are special & not just your regular hats. Please use the suggested yarn & patterns specific to chemo caps (pattern is different from regular hats due to the recipients not having much hair). If you have any chemo cap patterns that you have knitted & really like, please let Michele Germanson know so we can make sure people know about it.

Each quarter, we will be showcasing a specific chemo cap pattern. A member of the guild will knit the chemo cap and we will display the cap at a monthly meeting (January, April, July & October). A picture of the chemo cap will be put out on the blog for everyone to view, along with the pattern. If you would like to volunteer to be one of the knitters for one of the showcased chemo caps, let Michele Germanson know.

The Minnesota Knitters' Guild kicked off 2010 with a year-long guild service project to knit hats, scarves and mittens.

Members and non-members can knit hats, scarves and mittens or any combination of these and donate the items at any of the monthly meetings this year. Each quarter at a meeting (March, June, October and December) the items that were knit that quarter will be shown at the meetings so people can look at/touch them and get inspired to knit more for the charities.

The charities this year are Parents In Community Action, Inc (PICA) which is a private, non-profit agency designated by the federal government to operate Head Start and Early Head Start programs in Hennepin County. The agency was founded in 1969 by Head Start parents. Today PICA serves nearly 2,500 children and families and offers a variety of programs and services for children and families in addition to Head Start and Early Head Start. To learn more see their website www.picaheadstart.org.

The other charity is the White Earth Reservation Community, which is near Detroit Lakes, Bemidji and Park Rapids. The reservation was established March 19, 1867 with the Mississippi. The White Earth Band of Ojibwa has 19,506 enrolled members. To learn more see their website www.whiteearth.com.

When knitting for PICA you are knitting for kid’s age 0 – 5. Any type of yarn and any color are OK.

When knitting for White Earth you can knit for kids, teens or the elderly. They would like items in washable wool or wool/acrylic. They would really like warm felted mittens. It gets cold up there (recorded temps range to minus 51 and the frost can penetrate to a depth of greater than 8 feet).

Want to know more? Want to get started? Check out our blog:

http://mnknittersguild.wordpress.com/.

You can also contact Michele Germanson at 952-927-9906 or email her at with specific questions.

We have a year-long service project for 2009: The "Block of the Month" club (8-by-8-inch squares knitted out of machine-washable fibers, to be assembled into afghans at our January 2010 meeting). Finished afghans go to Bundles of Love, Children's Home Society and Family Services, and Range Center, Inc. Visit our blog for monthly patterns.

For our November 2008 meeting, we're knitting sets of hats, mittens, and scarves for the local Ronald McDonald House. See longer article for links to patterns.

Due at our July 2008 meeting: baby afghans to help prevent domestic abuse.

How we helped 1,200 children get “little red stockings” in 2007.

Our first-quarter project for 2007 repeats our fourth-quarter project for 2004: Bundles of Love, a Minnesota nonprofit dedicated to helping infants and their families.

How MKG members reach out to our community with yarn and supplies.

Anchors aweigh to the second-quarter 2007 charity-knitting project: the Ships Project.

Our fourth-quarter project for 2006: Caps to the Capital, dedicated to keeping newborns warm.

Our third-quarter community-service project for 2006: making warm clothes for children in Laos, with help from the Ramsey County Children's Home Society.

2nd quarter 2006 MKG community service project is dedicated to keeping local families in need warm. Items will be collected at the June guild meeting.

Our first-quarter community-service project for 2006: knitting slippers for U.S. servicemen and servicewomen.

Our fourth-quarter project for 2005: knitting mittens for local children and adults who need to keep warm this winter.

Our third-quarter project for 2005: knitting helmet warmers for men and women serving in the military.

Our second-quarter project for 2005: Charitable Crafters.

Our first-quarter project for 2005: the Mother Bear Project.

The Minnesota Knitters' Guild has been supported the Minnesota Visiting Nurse Agency for many years. We regularly collect yarn and knitted clothing for public-health nurses to give to the families they care for.

Our second-quarter project for 2004: Crisis Nurseries, for young children who need support and compassion.

The first-quarter community service project for 2004 is knitted dolls and bears – or knitted clothing for dolls and bears – for children away from their families in situations of risk.

Preemie mittens are the third-quarter 2003 Minnesota Knitters' Guild community service project.

In summer 2002, the Minnesota Knitters' Guild provided yarn and plastic needles to support groups at the Minnesota Correctional Facility for Women at Shakopee, which houses about 370 women.

For many years, the MKG has supported the Little Red Stocking program of the Children's Home Society, donating yarn to volunteer knitters who make hats, mittens, and scarves for needy children.