Knitting And Crochet For Charity: Project Linus Blankets, Knots Of Love, And Hats For The NICU

Charity knitting and crochet is a quiet third career for many retired crafters. A pair of hands that produced 30 baby blankets in a year for a hospital is a meaningful daily contribution that does not require a commute, a uniform, or a paycheck. The three national charities below are the most established, the most transparent about their guidelines, and the safest places to send work without worrying that the items will be wasted or repackaged for resale.

Project Linus is the largest and the oldest. The organization was founded in 1995 and has delivered more than 10 million hand-made blankets to children in hospitals, shelters, and foster care across the United States. Local chapters cover almost every state. A volunteer makes a blanket to one of the standard sizes, washes the blanket, and drops it at the local chapter or mails it to the chapter address. The chapter coordinator inspects the blanket, attaches a label, and delivers it to a partner hospital or social service agency. The chapter directory lives at projectlinus.org with a clickable map. Standard sizes are 36 by 36 inches for an infant, 40 by 60 inches for a child, and 60 by 72 inches for a teenager. Acrylic worsted yarn is preferred because it is washable on warm and durable in industrial laundry.

Knots of Love is focused on hats for adult and child cancer patients. The organization, founded in 2007 in Newport Beach California, has shipped more than 800,000 hats to oncology units across the country. The pattern requirements are strict because chemotherapy patients have sensitive scalps. Yarn must be 100 percent cotton or a soft cotton-acrylic blend, never wool. The hat must have no seams, with no rough edges on the inside, and use a pattern from the approved list on the website. The shipping address and the full pattern library are at knotsoflove.org.

The third project is hats for the neonatal intensive care unit, often called premie hats or NICU hats. Most large hospitals run a local program through the volunteer services office, and many accept donations of preemie-sized hats year round. The standard premie hat is two to four inches across and three to four inches tall, knit in a soft DK or sport-weight yarn. The Knit For Kids program at World Vision and the Save the Children Caps to the Capital project also accept newborn hats. Source pages include projectlinus.org, knotsoflove.org, the World Vision Knit For Kids page at worldvision.org, the American Heart Association Little Hats Big Hearts program at heart.org, and the Octopus for a Preemie US group at octopusforapreemieus.com.