Creative Gifts
If you know Julie Todd, you know that her hands are never idle. When she’s not working on a computer as Ebenezer’s Finance Assistant, chances are she’s using her crochet hook to transform a skein of yarn into a warm winter scarf. Over the past three years, she has donated hundreds of her colorful creations to delighted fourth graders at Kate Waller Barrett Elementary School in Stafford.
“My mom is the one who started it,” Julie explained. “She made scarves for local charities in Indiana, but they didn’t accept them during Covid, so she sent them home with me.” Her mother, Barbara Twichell, also shared her crochet pattern so Julie could make scarves too.
One day Julie made an offhand comment to her neighbor, a fourth-grade teacher at Barrett, about all the scarves accumulating at her house, and the idea of donating them to the students was born.
“She needed about 25 scarves for her class, but I still had a lot left over, so I said, ‘How many other classes are there?’” Julie said. She ended up donating enough scarves for every fourth-grade student in the school and in doing so, launched a tradition that is now eagerly anticipated every winter.
“It became a thing. Every fourth grader gets a scarf,” Julie said. “The kids love them. Many of them don’t get homemade things very often.”
Each scarf is a unique, wearable work of art that takes about five hours and 250 yards of yarn to make. Julie and Barbara (who just celebrated her 90th birthday!) purchase all the yarn themselves, taking advantage of seasonal sales. After donating 125 to 150 scarves to Barrett each year, they pack any extras in plastic bags and clip them to the Winter Clothesline at Fredericksburg Presbyterian Church for those in need.
“It’s a way of giving back,” Julie explained. “We just keep making them. When I visit my mom, I pick up everything she’s worked on and bring it home. It keeps her hands busy.”
Those busy hands certainly run in the family. Thanks to Julie and Barbara for using their creative gifts to bring warmth and comfort to others during the coldest time of year.