Editor's note: Southwest Minneapolis Patch is happy to offer this space to Barbara Melom to talk about the Hats for the Homeless project. If you know of a project that deserves attention, please don't hesitate to contact me.

By Barbara Melom

The project began in the fall of 2009 when one friend asked another, "Do you think we could get the knitters at church to make 50 hats to bring to the homeless shelter on Christmas Eve?" The other friend didn't pause before she replied "Yes!"

The original goal was just 50 hats to bring along on Christmas Eve when a group of people from First Universalist Churchwould be serving the meal at Simpson Housing Shelter in Minneapolis. What happened over the course of that fall blew us away. Over 300 hand knit hats came in from all over the Twin Cities, all over our state and all over the country. In 2010, that number skyrocketed to over 800 hats hand-made and hand-delivered to over 800 men, women and children this holiday season!

In 2010, Hats for the Homeless partnered with Steven BE’s Yarn Garage to provide a cozy place for knitting parties, as well as pump up the fun of co-creating together!  For distribution, volunteers visited numerous homeless shelters in the days before Christmas, sharing their goods and meeting those who work and live in the many homeless housing facilities in Minneapolis.

Hats for Homeless even partnered with other local nonprofits, including the Kingfield Neighborhood Association, and provided over 50 hats to the formerly homeless youth that will be moving into Nicollet Square in the coming weeks. 

Hats for the Homeless is a project of First Universalist Church, a liberal religious home in Minneapolis for over 150 years and one of the foremost Unitarian-Universalist congregations in the United States.

If you want to participate or get more information on the project, please contact Barbara Melom at bjm@visi.com.