Students in crochet enrichment classes at Texas High School have been working to bring awareness of the importance of heart health to newborns and their mothers.
The needleworkers in the three classes, taught by Lauren Pilgreen, Rhonda Johnson and Teddie Gore, have been crocheting red hats for the Little Hats, Big Hearts project sponsored by the American Heart Association in connection with the Children's Heart Foundation. The beanies will be given to babies born during the month of February, which is American Heart Month, to empower mothers to live heart healthy lives and help their children do the same.
Pilgreen worked with the students and teachers Friday to pack more than 30 of the hats in a box to be shipped to the AHA office in Irving, Texas.
"It was a quick service project," she said. "If we had known about this project at the beginning of the semester, we would have had hundreds."
Little Hats, Big Hearts began in February 2014 in Chicago; 300 hats were collected in the first year. Now, it's in more than 40 states and has been featured on NBC's "Today Show."
At Texas High, the crocheting enrichment students have done service projects for about two years, Pilgreen said, and this one fit in with the theme of giving.
"One year, they knitted hats for the homeless down at Randy Sams' (Outreach) Shelter," Pilgreen said. "We were just looking for a service project. They were doing individual projects, and this came along, and I made them stop the individual projects and start in on this."
In doing so, almost every single student completed a hat, she said, with several students completing many more.
"Everybody pitched in, and I think they turned out great," Pilgreen said.
There are designs on AHA's website, heart.org, but once the students learned the basics of how to make the hats, they stuck with an easy pattern that could quickly turn the yarn into a wearable work of art.
"Someone very comfortable with the pattern could complete a hat in under 30 minutes," Pilgreen said. "That was kind of our goal, since enrichment is only 30 minutes. We wanted to get one hat done every class period or two every three class periods or so."
When Faith West, one of Pilgreen's students, was asked what it was like to make the hats for the babies, she said, "It feels really good."
Pilgreen said she was happy with the project so far and that it would continue in the spring crochet enrichment classes.
"The only thing I hate is we ran out of time," she said. "I would have liked to have the students write little notes, little phrases to stick in the hats, little words of encouragement for the kids."
More red yarn is needed for the project, and it can be brought to the office at Texas High, 4001 Summerhill Road in Texarkana. Visit heart.org for more information on Little Hats, Big Hearts.