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Knitting everywhere!

As a teacher, I want to say how incredibly proud I am of Room 22 for the event they organised, the knitting they’ve done, and the people they got to come on board and help us out. This project, a collaboration between School Kit and the Student Volunteer Army was designed as a student led initiative. It can be hard to step back and let the kids take the lead, but I can proudly say that not only did they take the lead, but they rocked it.

We owe big thank you’s to so many people, that it’s impossible to name them all. But here are a few of the people that we literally could not have done this without.

A special thanks goes to Mrs Kelly, who saved our bacon. It’s really hard trying to teach 30 kids to knit, and she came in every single morning for a good couple of weeks and patiently sat one on one with kids who were struggling. She also rounded up other people to knit for us, and then brought in several blankets that she’d crocheted for us to add to our pile of blankets to give. She also donated 90% of the wool we used which was a massive massive help. Thank you Mrs Kelly!!

Huge thank you’s go out to the people who saved our squares when we dropped stitches or just didn’t have a clue how to fix them. Miss Begunk, Mrs Fairweather, Mrs Yandell and Mrs Kubala all came to the rescue on numerous occasions to help us out.

We had people from all over the community and the school knit for us. So if you knitted one square or 100, thank you. We appreciate every knit, purl and stitch.

I’m really proud of the entire class, but I do want to give mention to a few of the teams who ensured that yesterday’s event went smoothly.

Our catering team excelled themselves, organising the food, the tea and coffee, and making sure that no guest went without. Thanks to Mrs Fsadni and Mrs Harvey for supporting them, and to Sierra in Beachlands for supplying the scones and muffins! You have people lined up ready to make a holiday visit out to the cafe for the scones alone!

Our mismatched team of community liaisons, platoon leaders and add ons, who went out of their way to welcome every singe guest, and chat with them! Especially our unofficial official welcomer!

I’d also like to thank the kids who stepped out of their comfort zone and went and sat down and chatted with the guests. It was so awesome to see you all sitting, chatting and knitting with the wonderful women who came along to the event.

Over the holidays we will be working on putting these squares together so that next term we can gift the blankets to new refugee families to New Zealand.

As a teacher, you want nothing more than for your kids to experience learning hands on, and to gain something from the experience. I think that I can say confidently that Room 22 now not only understands what it is like to take on a challenge and fail before succeeding, how to persevere and help others. Our learning about the challenges that refugees face has been life changing for some of them. They’ve also gained some pretty awesome event planning skills, so for your next event, call Room 22!

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