Meral's Reflection

Crocheting Club was a group that I helped to create in order to personalize and create materials for the less fortunate in NYC. Choosing the Bowery Mission was an extensive and active conversation amongst the group members. We felt that the organization that we chose should reflect our passions and inspirations that led to the start of the club. Personally, choosing the Bowery mission was important because growing up, I always heard that if I was ever around the area of the Bowery mission, to make sure to be alert. If I was walking on the block, to make sure that I was walking across the street, to stay safe. This stigmatization, I later learned, was not only something that I had heard about, it turned out that other people in my group had hears similar warnings growing up. Realizing that it has become easy to fear the unknown, those less fortunate, we decided to help these at risk youth by helping to provide them warmth.
Entering this experience, I did not know how to crochet, but I did know how to sew. I thought that learning to crochet could be easy, but it wasn’t and it took hours of youtube videos and many meetings to learn the different techniques. Having some great teachers, Annie, Gabe, and Noah, with different teaching abilities helped me learn how to learn from my peers. This helped to make the learning experience exponential because once I learned the techniques, I began helping Georgia and what I needed help with she was teaching me. The process of the students becoming each other’s teachers was not a dynamic that I was accustomed to in my previous community service works. Unlike my other work, I knew that I would not be able to see how my work affected those who received our crochet work, I had to believe that it would help without having that human interaction, which was special because the reward was something that I needed to picture, but always be left wondering.
During the weeks that I was crocheting, I found myself occasionally reaching for the crochet hooks to try and finish the new clothing I was making. I did not like seeing the clothing in complete and always wanted to finish it. I also learning how soothing it was, almost like an outlet with how calming it was. The “fun” focus required kept me on my toes about making a mistake in any of the things because it would be hard to fix it. Overall, the learning to get to the level of being able to crocheting without constant guidance on standy by was a tedious one, but incredibly rewarding by the time I did. It was hard with the recommendation to work with people you weren’t close with so that the group would get things done, but what we did it and inherently became closer as a group. Each member played a critical role in the work we did and I believe that it showed in the final product.