I recently discovered that two of my colleagues who will be participating in the Soup & Sleep event in South Australia in June 2023.
I wanted to offer something to the cause so I thought that a couple of bespoke beanies would keep them warm throughout the night.
Soup and Sleep is an annual event that aims to raise awareness and funds to combat homelessness in Australia. Participants spend one night sleeping rough, engaging in conversations, and sharing a bowl of soup with people experiencing homelessness. The event creates a sense of empathy and community while generating support for organizations working tirelessly to address homelessness. Quite surreptitiously, this year the event is being held 20metres from the building where my father first started his business in the early 1970s.
To support my colleagues I carefully crafted custom beanies designed to provide warmth, comfort, and style. The yarns are very thick and the beanies are double layered. The color palette embodies warmth with earthy tones. When I met my colleague the other day he introduced me to someone else who will be attending so I gave him one of the beanies and am now making another one in my other colleague's favourite colour - blue.
Beanies have become a bit of a thing in the last few years with the blue beanies now made for The Big Freeze which helps to raise money for MS awareness and Buy a Beanie for the Mark Hughs Foundation. Obviously these are made at scale, something that a micro enterprise would struggle to do.
I've been thinking about how to hand make beanies at scale and especially, how teach kids to do it easily. More on that soon but I take my beanie off to those individuals participating in the cause and hope to be in a better place to contribute more next year.