Turning my hobby into helping others

When I was twelve, my grandmother started teaching me how to crochet and knit. Since my first stitch, every visit to see Grandma Ama was an opportunity for me to get hooked on this amazing skill. Twenty-six years later, I still have the first sweater that my grandmother and I knitted together -- that's how special I felt about our time together. As I began to participate in more school sports and activities, I didn't have time to crochet or knit and had forgotten it for awhile. Here and there I would pick up crocheting and knitting out of the blue, like knitting a blanket for a wooden cradle that I made for my Big sorority sister, knitting an Indians blanket for my husband as part of his wedding day present, or crocheting an item or two a year for my kids.

It wasn't until a few months ago when I volunteered to participate in a Crafts Bazaar at Ernst & Young (E&Y), where I worked, to help raise money for its holiday gift giving that my hobby turned into an opportunity to help others. E&Y usually gives a large amount of money to the local community, and it also gives its employees an opportunity to directly help in those efforts. For the Crafts Bazaar, E&Y was going to double what you were willing to donate. I quickly jumped at the chance to do it because with three kids and a full-time job, I rarely had the chance to volunteer in the community. Plus, I just came off from making three Angry Bird hats for my kids and they loved it, so I thought why not making more of these to sell at the bazaar. Most importantly, my grandmother passed away from cancer about five years ago and I knew since then that I wanted to do something special to honor her, and how ironic that crocheting would be that avenue to honor her by.

Since EY's Crafts Bazaar was my first crafts show and with only having two and a half months to make enough things to sell, I started to get nervous, not so much so that I didn't think I'd get the things done in time, but more so because I wasn't sure if I would be able to sell enough things to donate to charity. I was prepared to buy back some of my things if no one bought anything, but that would "knot" have been fun, pun intended. I loved the encouragement from my kids, and would help when they can. I will always remember my oldest son calling the preparation for the crafts bazaar as "yarning for charity. "For my kids, it was a win-win situation. If I sold a lot of things, they would be happy for me. If I didn't, they would be owning extra hats and scarves to add in their closets.

Thankfully, I sold enough to donate $100 to EY's holiday gift giving ($200 with firm's mtach). It felt so wonderful to have participated in such an event that buys toys for the struggling families in our communities. Since then I've been trying to think of ways that I can do something similar, while not taking away the important time that I have with my family, and not compromise my job. Fast forward two months to the present, I've decided to revisit my hobby business, Just Image-on, and really spend more time on it (up until that point, I had done nothing with it for over a year). I started promoting some of the things I had made from the Crafts Bazaar and had gotten a lot of positive feedback from it. (While you're at Just Image-on, don't forget to "Like" and share my page with your friends. Sorry for the shameless plug.)

Now, I am dedicating my weekends and late nights to my new charitable hobby. I hope to make and sell enough of the items to continue to do what I love doing while helping my community, while also make extra cash to support my three kids' hobbies as they grow up. I know there will be a lot of hard work and lost sleep in seeing this through but as my grandmother always said, "You need to have patience and discipline in whatever you do, and create opportunities to give to others whenever you can."

So I began brainstorming ideas and even got insomnia because of all the ideas that I had and that is where we arrive to what you see below. Visit my blog again soon to learn more about "Care to crochet," how my grandmother and children are the inspiration behind it, and how you can also get hooked on helping your community, too.