The Larger Story of KidKnits

Over the past few months, I have shared with you a little about our family and our journey that is KidKnits. In many ways, this Great Adventure that we are on is very personal with every member of our immediate family involved in some way. While I am glad to be sharing our personal journey with you, I am afraid that if you think of KidKnits as just our family’s story, you are missing something very powerful. There is a much larger story that is about the over 750 students and teachers who have now been a part of the KidKnits program helping to change lives on the other side of the world. This larger story is these students who are creating a knitted hat for the first time in their lives, who are grasping the concepts of the reality of world poverty, who are identifying with people on the other side of the world involved with the KidKnits yarn, who are recognizing the power of responsible charity in the world, and are growing aware of their own role as a global world citizen. We wish we could share every one of these 750 stories with you, because each one is unique and powerful. From Jennifer who knitted her own KidKnits hats and then went into her old elementary school to share KidKnits with younger students, to Noah who woke up in the predawn hours to make sure that when his dad went hunting he had on his newly knitted, orange, warm KidKnits hat as he left, to the entire 5th grade class at St. Joseph’s Catholic School who purchased over 200 extra balls of yarn after they had already each knitted two hats during their class time, to the St. Vincent de Paul 5th and 6th grade Discovery group who knitted and then donated their hats to children in an at-risk after school program. Here is a brief note that we received from Sarah Hogan, the religion teacher at St. Vincent de Paul about their experience with KidKnits.

Hi Steve,

I wish you and Kristin could have been a part of our visit to the Friendship House yesterday. It is probably one of the greatest things I have ever been a part of. Our kids were buddied up with a child from their afterschool program. I’m so proud of the way our SVdP students embraced these kids, treated them as a new friend, and shared their work with them. Some of the buddies had their own handshakes before we left! The kids were so excited to receive the hats and put them on as soon as they could. It was so fun to witness the pride shining through the smiles of our students. They really felt like it was a part of themselves that they were able to give. Today they are talking about their new friends by name. Some even asked me if we could send them some Christmas presents and keep in touch with them.

Thank you so much for the work you do and this wonderful opportunity for our kids. Ellie’s vision and your hard work has made it possible for us to learn about service, leadership, and the dignity of work – really about what it means to be Christian. Kidknits has been a valuable learning experience for our kids helping them to step out of their little world and into the world of another, one just down the road, and another across the globe.

School after school, classroom after classroom, and student after student – we are so blessed to be connected to you. The KidKnits story keeps being written with every hat that is created and every student that is empowered to change the world. Only God knows how it will continue to be written, but our family is in for the ride and we hope you will continue on this journey together with us. So, as the stories from kids around our country are knitted together with the stories from the beautiful women in Rwanda and in Chile, we say “Thank you”, “Murakoze”, and “Gracias”.

“Moments.”  Short, priceless, memory making moments that etch themselves into your life and being, are how I, as the mom, mark this family adventure and mission that is known as KidKnits.  Moments like when Ellie had a chance to meet the ladies of True Vineyard Ministries in Rwanda.  Moments when my husband and I get frustrated when the kids don’t want to help count balls of yarn on inventory day.  Moments when we feel so grateful for our children and their sense of service and global worldview.   Moments when the full impact that the experience of knitting a KidKnits hat has had on hundreds of students as evident in a proud grin or a high five.  And moments when we sit back and realize the foundation for this journey began in the heart of a nine-year old girl who is now a tween.  A tween who likes Instagram and sometimes forgets to ask us before she picks up her ipod.  A tween with Ancient Greece homework projects and a new volleyball team and the tryouts for the school musical coming around the corner.  A tween, like so many, who is wonderful and caring, insightful and wise, emotional and dramatic, and so very real in her enthusiasm for life’s experiences.  It is in the spirit of “moments” that we share this article that was recently published in Discovery Girls magazine.   The publication of this article is a moment in our tween’s life that excited her, inspired her, and filled her with a sense of pride and a moment in this mom’s life when KidKnits and Ellie, her age and her innocence, her heart and her style, her honesty and her authenticity, combined into a special moment for all of us.   View high resolution

“Moments.”  Short, priceless, memory making moments that etch themselves into your life and being, are how I, as the mom, mark this family adventure and mission that is known as KidKnits.  Moments like when Ellie had a chance to meet the ladies of True Vineyard Ministries in Rwanda.  Moments when my husband and I get frustrated when the kids don’t want to help count balls of yarn on inventory day.  Moments when we feel so grateful for our children and their sense of service and global worldview.   Moments when the full impact that the experience of knitting a KidKnits hat has had on hundreds of students as evident in a proud grin or a high five.  And moments when we sit back and realize the foundation for this journey began in the heart of a nine-year old girl who is now a tween.  A tween who likes Instagram and sometimes forgets to ask us before she picks up her ipod.  A tween with Ancient Greece homework projects and a new volleyball team and the tryouts for the school musical coming around the corner.  A tween, like so many, who is wonderful and caring, insightful and wise, emotional and dramatic, and so very real in her enthusiasm for life’s experiences.  It is in the spirit of “moments” that we share this article that was recently published in Discovery Girls magazine.   The publication of this article is a moment in our tween’s life that excited her, inspired her, and filled her with a sense of pride and a moment in this mom’s life when KidKnits and Ellie, her age and her innocence, her heart and her style, her honesty and her authenticity, combined into a special moment for all of us.  

Did you hear the big KidKnits news?

It has been a year now since my husband, Steve, our daughter, Ellie, our entire family, and I made a decision to make some big personal changes and focus our family’s mission on KidKnits.   What does that mean exactly?  For months Steve and I would stay up late, after he finished work and I was done homeschooling our daughters, to work on developing the KidKnits materials and program.  Steve taught himself to knit on a round loom; I taught myself how to create marketing materials.  As we were juggling and trying to find a balance, we couldn’t shake this push in our hearts that we should be doing “more” for the women in Rwanda.  We prayed, we talked, we prayed some more.  Finally, last fall, we decided to move our family to a situation where both Steve and I would be able to have “more” time to focus on KidKnits.  Deciding to define your young family’s mission as one with the goal of changing lives on the other side of the world can be a bit overwhelming and there is not a handbook that shows you how to do it.  So Steve and I, armed with our faith and our family, set out on our own KidKnits’ story.    

 In the fall of 2010, we first committed to buying up to 100 balls of yarn each month from our partner, True Vineyard Ministry, their maximum capacity at that time.  Steve and I remember leaving an early meeting with Diana Wiley, Executive Director of True Vineyard Ministries, and learning that every woman employed by TVM would be working on spinning wool for this order.  We got in the car and looked at each other with an excitement tinged with trepidation.  Would we be able to sell 100 balls of yarn per month?  We had never done this sort of thing before and now we really had to sell that yarn.  The KidKnits story is a beautiful story to share and we got an order from a church friend who was going to give KidKnits kits as birthday gifts.  We then got invited to host a knitting party with my niece and ten of her friends.  Next a college friend of mine invited Ellie and I to come and teach a handful of moms and daughters about KidKnits.  Then a school principal had the vision to sign up her entire fourth grade for the KidKnits project in her school.  Then Ellie’s fifth grade teachers decided that they would like to knit KidKnits hats as their service project. 

Each ball of yarn, being sold one at a time, convinced us that KidKnits was a story being written with Rwanda and with children here.  We realized that being empowered to show how they care about the world can, in fact, change a child.  We started to receive pictures of kids who had completed their KidKnits hats and our hearts sung when we saw the joy and pride on their faces as they modeled their new hats.  We talked with Diana about growing her capacity.  One hundred balls of yarn, which at one time we were fearful of selling, was just not enough to satisfy the number of people who wanted to buy KidKnits kits and be part of this beautiful story. 

Diana and True Vineyard Ministries has grown in response to the demand for KidKnits kits.  When we first met, TVM employed ten women, this grew to twenty last July, and has now grown to thirty-five women.  These women work on creating the beautiful yarn that we purchase.  But Diana does not run a factory, she runs a ministry which provides a holistic response to the poverty and tragedy these women have experienced.  While she employs these Rwandan women to make yarn, the integrity of her mission depends on being more than just an employer.  Diana was excited about the demand that we were seeing, but she didn’t want to grow too fast and impact the holistic nature of her mission.  We understood. 

We prayed.  When you want to buy more supply of a yarn that supports employment for vulnerable women struggling with the day-to-day realities of world poverty, it’s not quite like going to the grocery store and buying another gallon of milk.  Where would we find women who were in need of employment and yet also had the ability to spin wool?  We prayed more and we asked our friends to pray with us.  We were introduced to the women of Rwanda by a remarkable chain of events that some would say border on miraculous.  But did God want us to stay in Rwanda?  Was Ellie’s story about being moved to care about women in Rwanda, a story that could also be relevant in other countries and other situations where great poverty suffocates and traps families?  After months searching for another source of wool, our prayers were answered. 

We learned of the Ursuline Sisters, working in Chillan, Chile.  The sisters run Casa Ursulina, a school where they are able to teach women in the community how to spin wool among other things.  We reached out to them.  Would they be interested in partnering with a nonprofit founded by a young girl and run by her parents?  Our partnership would not be like any other.  We wanted to know the women who were working with them, visit them and share their stories with the many students making KidKnits hats.  We talked with our new friends, Sister Ruth and Sister Mimi.  Steve and his dad took a trip to Chile to meet the sisters and women of Casa Ursulina.  And we continued to pray. 

We are so excited to share that KidKnits will be growing to help support 16 additional families in the country of Chile through the Ursuline Sisters at Casa Ursulina.   Their beautiful yarn is now a part of the KidKnits kit family online and we are developing a comprehensive curriculum to integrate with this new product in schools.

KidKnits is about Rwanda, it is about the strong women who dance and sing with joy as they work to spin yarn and who openly loved on my daughter, Ellie, when she went to visit them.   KidKnits is about Chile and the families that struggle through cold winter months with indoor fires and open walls in their homes and the Ursuline Sisters who have humbly given their lives to serve them with their own beautiful smiles and hearts.  KidKnits is about the large number of students in our schools who are getting a chance to know how it feels to help change the world.  It is about inner city students taking a field trip to walk through the door of a local mission and give a large donation of their KidKnits hats for the homeless shelter.   KidKnits is about our families and friends who have shared the KidKnits craft kits with their own kids and empowered them to change the world.  KidKnits is about all of these stories.  It is about sharing the message that you really aren’t ever too young (or old) to change a life on the other side of the world.  So, as we work for the women in both Rwanda and Chile and share their stories, we thank you for being part of our story, we hope you will be excited for our growth into Chile, and we hope that you’ll stick around to read the next chapter. 

In humility and devotion, with love and gratitude,

Kristin (mom of Ellie)

This past summer, with the help of a grant from the Community Foundation of Central Illinois, KidKnits had an opportunity to work with the Peoria Park District’s ELITE program and Proctor Center in Peoria, IL and share KidKnits as part of their summer camp program.  Steve and I, along with Trewyn School teacher, Patty Lawless, worked together to present the week long program to several different age groups, ranging from eight to thirteen.  We walked into Proctor Center prepared to teach over 40 campers not only how to knit their own wool hat but also what it means to be a global leader.  I took a deep breath.  I knew we were working with teacher extraordinaire, Patty, but could we engage over 40 summer campers in a program about Global Leadership and get them excited about knitting?  It was 95 degrees outside and there was a swimming pool competing for their attention.  I knew that the powerful messages about Global Leadership, Empathy, Community Action, and Empowerment were important to share with these students and I was humbled that KidKnits was even able to be there. 

On day one, we began to tell the stories about the amazing Rwandan women who made the yarn, and we began to have the students think about the idea of global leadership.  We shared with them how the simple gift of knowing how to round loom knit was the catalyst for Ellie’s KidKnits idea and worked with them to reflect on their own gifts to share with the world.  We shared with them how, by simply knitting their own KidKnits hat, they were already helping to support the employment of 35 women in Rwanda.   They were, in truth, changing lives on the other side of the world. 

Day two continued with the students becoming more proficient at knitting their hats, but also getting a chance to reflect on the idea of empathy.  They learned about how global leaders are better leaders when they notice the world and people around them.  By day three, the students were getting into it.  What seemed like an impossible task for them to accomplish, knitting their own hat, was now a tangible goal in front of them.  Their hats were forming with each knitted row, and their hearts were changing as they became more and more aware of the impact that they were having on the world.  We continued with more knitted rows of yarn, more reflections on the challenges facing our world today, and more connection with the women in Rwanda.  As the knitting completed and finished hats were tried on, each camper knew that theirs was not an ordinary hat - this was a hat with story – the Rwandan story, but also their own story.  The hats were tried on and they didn’t come off.  It was 95 degrees outside, but the wool hats did not come off.  The smiles, the accomplishment, and the pride on each camper’s face communicated the power of KidKnits in a way that my simple words can never convey and in a way that will be forever etched on my heart.  I hope that those hats remain with each Proctor camper as more than a camp craft but as the constant reminder of how they “changed a life on the other side of the world.”  

KidKnits has hit the continent of Europe!  The top knitting magazine in the UK, Simply Knitting, published this KidKnits highlight in their July issue.  We’ve now had the pleasure of shipping KidKnits kits to England as a result of this coverage.  We’re so thankful for coverage like this as it will allow KidKnits to continue to expand and impact even more lives in Rwanda!  The magazine can be found online at http://www.simplyknitting.co.uk and http://www.facebook.com/SimplyKnitting

Girl Scout Troop #478 from San Antonio decided to do KidKnits as their Bronze Award Project.  Each girl completed a KidKnits hat for donation to a local homeless shelter, Haven for Hope.  Many made additional hats for themselves or for a friend.  Troop leader Amy Soupiset tells KidKnits that the project “really brought our troop together around a common cause.”  Troop 478 is one of many student groups that are finding that through learning and completing a simple craft project, they can serve people on the other side of the world (in Rwanda) while at the same time serve people in their own community.   What group do you know that would enjoy a KidKnits project? View high resolution

Girl Scout Troop #478 from San Antonio decided to do KidKnits as their Bronze Award Project.  Each girl completed a KidKnits hat for donation to a local homeless shelter, Haven for Hope.  Many made additional hats for themselves or for a friend.  Troop leader Amy Soupiset tells KidKnits that the project “really brought our troop together around a common cause.”  

Troop 478 is one of many student groups that are finding that through learning and completing a simple craft project, they can serve people on the other side of the world (in Rwanda) while at the same time serve people in their own community.   What group do you know that would enjoy a KidKnits project?

It was our honor to have KidKnits recently a part of the Acton Academy in Austin, Texas.  Under Anna Blabey Smith’s leadership, Acton implemented many pieces of the KidKnits curriculum, and led a very lively discussion.  The students were asked to consider several questions, the following among them:

  • Whose responsibility is it to create opportunities for people struggling with poverty: the people struggling, individuals (like Ellie), larger organizations, or the government?  
  • Is it better to help others by giving them money, by giving them a job, or by doing something else?
  • Would you rather buy soft, brightly colored, uniform yarn that is made out of synthetic materials in a factory, or natural, hand-made yarn that is not as soft, bright, or uniform?
  • How could you take something you love to do to come up with a business that could help others?  

For Anna’s summary of what the students thought about these questions and the KidKnits project overall, see her summary in the Week 33 section here: https://sites.google.com/site/actonacademystudents/weekly-updates

100 Airplanes


KidKnits is about people, not statistics.  Our founder, my daughter, started KidKnits because she wanted to “change a life on the other side of the world”, not solve world poverty.  And yet, as we go into classrooms and talk about extreme poverty in the world, we believe it is important for students to understand the unbelievable scale of the problem of world poverty without feeling overwhelmed.  We recently read Richard Stearn’s excellent book, The Hole in Our Gospel.  We were struck by Richard’s analogy for understanding the scale of poverty in Africa, and thought that students in our classes would be as well.  Richard asks us to imagine that tomorrow morning the newspaper headline reads, “100 Airliners Crash, 26,500 killed”.  Certainly this headline would be the top story, certainly it would impact us all day as we struggled to imagine the magnitude of the tragedy - 100 plane crashes on the same day!  However, what if we awoke the following day only to find that it had happened again, and the next day, again, and on and on.  This tragic loss of innocent life mirrors the daily situation in Africa, where 26,500 children die each day of preventable disease!  As we discussed this analogy this week with a group of 5th and 6th graders, we realized that we all would have an immediate reaction of shock at the tragedy.  And yet, some of the students agreed that if this truly were to go on for weeks and months, we may eventually become numb to the situation.  Is that what has happened with respect to extreme poverty in Africa?  If 100 airplanes were crashing daily, would not every resource possible be focused on solving this problem?  Why do we not do more to address this tragedy?  

As I wrote at the beginning of this post, KidKnits is not about statistics, but about people.   KidKnits is  a family project, - my wife, my dad, my mom, my kids, and me.  How can my small family change the 26,500 number?  The number is so large and so far away.  The number that inspired my family and me to focus our time and efforts on KidKnits was  10.   Using KidKnits to give an opportunity for 10 women to have work through our partner, True Vineyard Ministries.  Ten women.  Now, thanks to you, our customers, the original 10 is now 28.  28 women.  28 families.  175 family members.  A plane crash?  Perhaps, a plane crash averted.   Lives on the other side of the world changed - by a simple, fun and meaningful craft. Thank you for being a part of this change.