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Friday, February 22, 2013

A little bit more about K4BN...

Yesterday's post featured a guest writer, Karen Croke, who is the founder of the charity knitting group, Knitting for Brisbane's Needy. I'm sure you would have enjoyed reading the 'journey' that Karen and her husband have made due to their concerns for the less fortunate in our communities. They are both such inspirational people.

BBQ for the Homeless in Musgrave Park, Feb 16, 2013


Last year the group was fortunate enough to be awarded a $5000 grant from Sunsuper and early this year, Pam Tatt who runs another knitting charity group, Knit for Charities, nominated Karen for a volunteer award run by the Heritage Bank. This competition is similar to last year's in so much that votes have to be collected to win, and this voting is all done via online. However, this time, people from all over the world can vote, not just in Australia. Now the (k)nitty gritty of this competition...what is the prize...????

Musgrave Park, Brisbane. BBQ for the Homeless


Well the winner will receive $1000 for themselves and $10 000 for their group/organisation. Would it surprise you, that if Karen should win, she plans to spend that $1000 on knitting yarns for the groups? The dreams for the use of the $10 000 include helping to acquire another vehicle to replace Peter's elderly truck and perhaps helping to build another shed for storage and sorting facilities. But the dreams are purely academic at the moment...the group is in second place. The #1 group are a Bat Conservation group and they are ahead by 200+.
Can you help? Here is the link... Heritage ; If you go to the 'vote now' page, Karen is the second name on the 'Top Ten'. It would seem that to vote, you have to have a Facebook account which many people do not. If you have more than one email address, you can use them all, including your Facebook email address. After voting, a confirmation email goes to the email address that you submitted. For your vote to count, you must click on the link in the confirmation.

 Now here is another 'story' from the recent BBQ for the Homeless. Karen explains:-

Then there was a young lady who was only there to get baby clothes for her baby due in September. Later in the afternoon we stood chatting, just her and I and she told me that she had 2 other children 9 and 7, but both had been taken from her years ago and put into foster care. She told me that she has "grown up now" and the social workers she has to deal with, think she may be able to keep this baby and not have it taken away from her. She also mentioned that she wanted to go down to NSW where her children are, to tell them that they were going to have a baby brother or sister, but she had to find out from her parole officer whether she was allowed to leave the state for a weekend. I didn't ask why she was on parole, but she went on to say how much she wanted this baby, had been "clean" for 2 years now, had a roof over her head and was trying to get a proper place because she wanted the best for this baby!! Wished her well, as she picked up her bags full of baby items, and walked in the rain, to get the bus to where ever it is she is living. She didn' want anything for herself, only the baby!



Knitted items handed in at Zillmere Knit and Natter

Bags full of knitted and crocheted blankets...
We have a public Facebook page. If you have a FB account we'd love you to visit and click on 'Like" :-)


PS Hopefully the competition  link is working well and if you enjoy voting maybe you could pass on the link to friends who might also like to help. Thank you :-)

3 comments:

Paul Forster said...

You do great work, Maria! It is wonderful you help so many needy people!

Justjen said...

Excellent reports Maria,they really show how vital Karen's group is to so many people.

Cheryl said...

Such great work Maria for so many needy people