Freedom Landing: Knitting for Homeless and Transitioning Veterans

A reader named Chris thanked me via email for the recent article on Sharing Our Gifts and added, “I own the group ‘Freedom Landing’ (on Ravelry) and we are providing hats / scarves / washcloths / fingerless gloves and finally lapghans for our Veterans in transitional housing. We were the first project for the 2nd round of Sharing Our Gifts.” For me, it was fun to hear personally from one of the groups that benefited from a recent Sharing Our Gifts drive. I visited her group on Ravelry to find out a bit more about it, since I’m sure KnittingforCharity readers would love to hear more! Freedom Landing is a Salt Lake City, Utah organization devoted to the transitional housing apartment complex of the same name that is designed to help get homeless veterans off the streets. In November 2014 they also began to knit for Valor House, a relatively new homeless shelter for veterans.

How You Can Help

Freedom Landing is always looking for folks to roll up their sleeves and dive in! They collect and distribute many types of projects, including lapghans (anywhere between 40″ x 40″ to 42″ x 42″), fingerless gloves, hats, scarves, washcloths, and 12-inch squares to be joined together into blankets. So you have many possible projects to choose from. Since most of the residents are, obviously, male, stick to masculine colors and styles. Black is always welcome, of course, and gray, brown, and navy blue are good choices too. If you want to knit for this group, join up at Ravelry. When you’re ready to send something to Chris (HilsGal on Ravelry), let her know so she can be on the lookout for it in the mail. The mailing address is right at the top of the “Sizes, colors, and other things you might wanna know” thread. For those of you who live in or near Salt Lake City, or simply want to give homeless or transitioning veterans a helping hand, Freedom Landing is a terrific group to knit for!