"Diane Brenno had balls of donated yarn, knitting looms purchased with a Partners in Education grant and an eager group of young knitters when she read an article about Caps to the Capitol, an effort to help save the lives of newborns overseas.
“It was like a flower blooming,” said Brenno, who runs the Lunch Club at Chautauqua Elementary. “I’ve got all these looms and yarn and here’s this program. Wouldn’t this be profound?”
Brenno showed the article to Samantha Philip. The fourth-grader read that four million newborns die each year within the first month of life and that three out of four of these deaths could be avoided with simple, low-cost tools, such as antibiotics, immunizations and knitted caps that help to keep babies warm.
Samantha was surprised that something as little as a hat could save a life.
“I thought it would be really fun to help somebody else,” she said.
So she knit a cap and then another, and soon other kids attending Chautauqua’s Lunch Club wanted to make caps as well. About 20 first to fifth-graders have been knitting caps during their recess.
They expected to have about 50 made by the holidays.
Caps to the Capitol, which is sponsored by the WarmUp America! Foundation and Save the Children, asks knitters to take three steps: “Make a Cap. Write the President. Unite for Newborns.” A number of the Chautauqua students wrote brief letters to the president asking that the administration support life-saving programs for children in developing countries.
The finished hats, along with letters to the president, will travel to Washington, D.C., and then on to newborns in need at Save the Children project sites around the world.
“I think life is a circle and that it’s important to teach kids to give back,” said Brenno, who the children call Grammie.
Running the popular Lunch Club is, in fact, Brenno’s “end-of-life” gift to Vashon. An Islander since 1962, she says giving school kids a welcoming and calm place to go during recess is her way of “paying back the community for all the good things that have happened to us here.”
“I really think that some of these kids are going to remember Grammie, Lunch Club and what they did here, because a lot of these kids need it. We laugh and have a good time. I try to put a few cents in once in awhile about caring and feelings, but mostly I’m here to be a soft spot.”
The students have only about 15 minutes to knit before they rush off to lunch, but clearly most of them understand the value of what they’re doing.
“We’re making little hats for babies in Third World countries so that three out of four babies get saved from premature death,” explained Marie Trudel, another fourth-grader.
“My hope is that it helps them survive,” added Samantha."
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