Shelby Jurca
Staff Writer
Coppell High School has a new club that is slowly gaining credibility and fame among students. Created by Lariettes, the idea for the Knitting for the Needy club came to them as an accident.
“A few of my Lariette friends began trying to pass the time for the long drive on the way to Midland for one of our playoff games and a few of them had brought needles and yarn,” Junior and Public Relations officer Allison Messimer said. “Someone, we always forget who, said, ‘What if we started a club for this?’ Then I said, ‘Knitting for the Needy,’ just because it was sort of catchy and we began bouncing around ideas about the ‘needy’ part. And what we have now is a club that has gotten many people involved.”
The goal of Knitting for the Needy is to knit and collect as many things as possible to take to homeless shelters in Dallas. Even students who don’t know how to knit can join this club and the other members will teach them how.
“We are teaching our members how to knit so that they can use their skill to help others and have fun doing it. Each meeting we talk about fundraisers, goals, and take time to knit, most kids don’t have time during their school week to sit down and do it, so we give them a place,” Messimer said.
Though the name of this club may say otherwise, it’s not all about knitting. They accept any donation, whether it’s old clothes, a blanket, or even toothpaste.
“Students are welcome to make anything for the needy. Right now we are more focused on teaching them how to knit, but after that most students will probably make scarves because it’s the easiest and does not take very long,” Junior and Vice President Emily Alexanderson said. “Students are also encouraged to bring some of their old clothes to the meetings so that we can give those to the needy as well.”
For the past year, Knitting for the Needy has been holding meetings and becoming more popular as the time passes. The success of this club is due to hard work, genuine interest and leadership. Students get not only a good time out of it, but also learn a new skill and discover a way to reach out and help the community.
“This club has had a huge turnout, and I think this is because of the genuine nature of the club’s intents. This isn’t a club about doing something just so you can put it on your resume,” sponsor Tracy Henson said. “This is a club that is about helping others and building character. Also, the club has great leadership who has gone out of their way to bring in new members and teach knitting skills to those who don’t already know how. This aspect has given the members the opportunity to learn a new skill in the process that they can carry with them forever.”
This effort to help the less fortunate while having fun and making memories is just another effort to unite Coppell High School for a greater cause.
