Knit or Crochet for Charity

Quick Win

Crafting with yarn helps relieve stress — and when you finish a project, you can donate what you’ve created to someone in need.

Try This Today

• Decide what you’ll make. Warm Up America! (WUA) is a national nonprofit that delivers handmade afghans and clothing to people in need, including children living in homeless shelters and residents of hospice care facilities. WUA accepts donations of knitted and crocheted blankets, hats, gloves, scarves and 7-by-9-inch sections year-round, or you can check warmupamerica.org/make/current-needs/ to see if they have any specific requests. If you’d rather donate locally, call an animal shelter, community center or other facility near you and ask if they need anything.
• Set a schedule. Determine how long it will take to finish your project, then carve out some time each week. Enjoy the process: According to the late Herbert Benson, M.D., a Harvard Medical School professor and a pioneer in the field of mind/body medicine, repetitive movements, like those used in knitting and crocheting, can help you relax and neutralize stress in as little as 10 minutes.
• Enlist a friend. Crafting with a loved one lets you enjoy the added benefit of social engagement, which “helps maintain thinking skills and slows cognitive decline in later life,” according to AARP’s Global Council on Brain Health 2017 report “The Brain and Social Connectedness.”

Why

This feel-good activity may benefit your brain in several ways. Among 8,391 crocheters, most between the ages of 41 and 60, 82 percent said crocheting made them happier, and close to 90 percent said they felt calmer. That survey was published in Perspectives in Public Health in 2020. An earlier study published in The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences in 2011 that analyzed data from 1,321 adults ages 70 to 89 found that knitting was among the cognitive activities (including reading books, crafting, playing games, using a computer) associated with a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment. Doing something nice for someone else has perks for you, too. In a study of 122 adults between the ages of 18 and 78 with anxiety or depression, published in 2022 in The Journal of Positive Psychology, those who performed acts of kindness had greater improvements in life satisfaction than those who recorded their thoughts, and they experienced greater feelings of social connection than those who planned social activities with others.