Summer Service Project: I was a stranger - Mongolian Youth Hat/ Cowl project

Posted by Kristy on

mongolia youth

SUMMER SERVICE OPPORTUNITY! My husband and I served in the United States Peace Corps in Mongolia from 2003-2005.   We lived in a "ger" and for two years we had no running water, a wood burning stove for heat and limited electricity for just a few hours every other night.  We taught English at the local schools and worked with the teachers to improve their teaching. Winters in Mongolia are very long and cold reaching temperatures of -40 degrees Fahrenheit. I wore long underwear from Oct 1-June 1 both years, adding more and more layers the colder it got. Any part of your face (cheeks, ears, nose) that were not covered when you went outside could be frost bit.  Hat, scarves and cowls were essential to staying warm and protecting yourself from the winter hazards. Sadly, there are many youth and children in Mongolia that are impoverished and even homeless and suffer cruelly from the cold. Our Summer Service Project provides an opportunity for American loomers, especially youth and teens, to provide an essential gift for these wonderful Mongolian youth by making a scarf, cowl, or hat and sending them to us, at CinDWood Crafts and Premium Knitting Looms, to be mailed to my contacts in Mongolia for distribution to needy families. We will be collecting hats and scarf/cowl sets between May 1, 2016 and Sept 1, 2016. Mail your contribution to: CinDWood Crafts, Attn: Summer Service, 2305 Ranch Road, Eagle Mountain, UT  84005 United States. Our goal is to encourage our wonderful looming community to create 150 sets of hats/scarves to send to Mongolia.  This would be a great service project for youth groups at summer camp! Contact us for large quantity pricing. 50 will go to Murun (the town we lived in) 50 to Darkhan (where we trained) and 50 more sets to UlaanBaatar (the capital city of Mongolia) for distribution to needy youth and children.
We have created Summer Service Kits in 3/4" and 5/8" gauges which will come with a loom for making a hat, cowl/scarf and a skein of yarn and some basic knit/purl patterns. The skein will make one 50 yard youth hat and one 50 yard youth cowl or scarf to make patterns that need more yarn you may order an extra skein. Feel free to use yarn and looms you already have. Anyone is invited to participate. But we thought with summer coming up, this might be a great way to get your teenagers and children involved in loom knitting with a purpose while they are out of school.
*** Remember there are NO WASHING MACHINES, everything must be hand washed, so yarn used should be durable. Also darker colors are preferable to hide dirt and dust.***

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