I wanted to involve the community in a craft that would minister to others. Knitting and crocheting came to mind, but we would need a small and simple project for beginners.
I decided on a baby blanket for stillborn babies. With this project, patrons could make as large or as small a blanket as they wanted, and families of still born babies would receive something warm and soft to wrap around their babies.
On Saturday, July 22, we hosted a Can-Unity building event to wrap up our summer library program. The summer's theme was architecture, so we thought it was fitting to end with a community building event.
The night before, local organizations created incredible structures made entirely from cans, boxes and bags of nonperishable food items. Participating organizations gathered and donated all of the food that was used in building their structures.
Helping Hands is an arts and crafts program that meets the needs of two communities — older adults and homeless populations — at the same time. Older adult participants socialize at the library while they make sleeping mats from upcycled plastic bags. The mats are then given to nearby homeless populations.Â
Swap It Like It’s Hot is a free clothes-swap program aimed at adult patrons. Patrons bring along their gently-used clothing and receive tokens. They use their tokens to swap for others' items. All remaining clothes after the swap are donated to the city mission.Â
The library also offered sewing and upcycling workshops in collaboration with Conscious Layers, a local organization that works to popularize the re-use of fashion.
A food drive with a twist, Winter Festival of Gifts (WFoG) has become a beloved annual tradition at Mount Prospect Public Library (MPPL) as a means to creatively give back to the community, while at the same time highlighting staff talent. The giveaway takes place at a special December luncheon during work hours. The prizes are handed out to the winners at the luncheon, or placed by their desk if they are unable to attend. Diane Davis, pioneer of the program, took time to share the ins and outs of this celebration of giving.
The Giving Tree is an annual event that begins right after Veteran’s Day and runs through mid-December. We set up an artificial pine tree that collects donations of new children’s hats, gloves, scarves and socks (and sometimes new picture books) for distribution within our community before the December holidays.
The Crafting for Charity group has existed at the Morton Grove Public Library since 2014. They meet once a month to work on their current project, choosing each project based on needs in the community.
Most recently the group undertook a project to create 75 Twiddlemuffs — knitted or crocheted hand muffs with various items (buttons, beads, etc.) attached — which serve the dual purpose of keeping hands warm while giving the fidgeting hands of many Alzheimer’s patients something to play with.
