The last of the students at Woodstock Elementary School had left for the day as staff members crept into Susan Richardson’s art classroom – yarn and patterns, hooks and needles in hand.

It was a Tuesday afternoon, and the school’s Crochet and Knitting Group was meeting.

As Richardson set out cookies and tea, others pulled out their specific projects and started to get to work.

At the back table, Denise Maples, an assistant at the school, helps Lorie Gordon, a kindergarten assistant, walk through a Granny’s Square pattern.

Carolyn Pulley, a guidance counselor, methodically adds on to her pink scarf, which has rows of ribbons embedded within it.

Each member has a different project and each person is at a different level of skill, but that does not matter.

The group, which has been at Woodstock for the better part of a decade, welcomes anyone.

“We’re really helping people who don’t know how (but want to learn),” Michelle McDonald, a library assistant, said.

In fact, the group began as a way for staff at Woodstock to learn a new craft: stamps, bracelets, wreaths, ribbon buttons. It expanded from there.

Watching from the outside, the women would let you believe this group was as much for them as anything else.

Ask them why they are there, and you will hear a list of reasons:

“Friendship.”

“Fellowship.”

“Stress Relief.”

They all laugh.

Teresa Holleran, a first-grade teacher at the school, points out that this group allows her the time to “touch base” with some of her colleagues from other grade levels. She is so busy during the day, she says, that she rarely sees most of the other teaching staff at Woodstock.

“Heck, I teach first grade and I don’t ever see Teresa,” Emily Rudiger quipped.

More laughter ensues from the group.

Yet, even with all the jokes, giggles and snacks, this group meeting was actually more service hour than social hour.

The ladies of the group were busy making scarves and other handmade gifts in order to raise funds for their Relay for Life team, “Granny’s Angels.”

Their name comes from a beloved cafeteria monitor, Patricia Dusik, better known as “Granny,” who referred to all of the students passing through her cafeteria doors as her “angels.” The women dedicated their Relay for Life team name to her after Dusik passed away from cancer.

In a way, Dusik, herself, is still part of the group as well. Before her death, she donated her old knitting needles to the ladies in order for them to help teach others how to knit.

Granny’s Angels has a table at Relay for Life ready, and this year they will sell their crafts to help support breast cancer research.

Rudiger looks up from her crocheting and shares that it is a disease that has affected a number of their co-workers at Woodstock, so it only made sense that it was this year’s mission.

Although, whenever a staff member at the school has brought another mission to the group, they have tackled it as well.

“The community here is so tight, I can’t explain it,” said Pam Williams, the library media specialist at the school.

“Caring,” Richardson added. She went to point out that other staff at Woodstock – the non-crocheters/knitters – still donate yarn to the group to help them with their projects.

And there have been a lot of projects.

Through the sale of their items, these ladies have helped raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund.

They sent hand-crocheted blankets to victims of Hurricane Katrina staying in FEMA housing.

They made red scarves for the Red Scarf Project, which provides support for foster children who have grown out of the system, but are now attending college – all on their own.

One year, they crocheted more than 400 baby hats to send to Save The Children and local hospitals.

“We’re just people who can’t watch TV without something in our hands to work on,” Pulley joked.

However, the ladies say their true motivation comes from knowing there is a need that they can help meet – with the flick of a crochet hook and a steady hand of yarn.

“I think everyone wants to be a part of helping someone else,” Holleran said.

Maples agreed.

“This building is a community,” she said, “and it operates as a community, a village.”

 

 

 

 

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