Sterling High School scarf-knitting project benefits local elementary students
Mar. 8—STERLING — A group of Sterling High School students are learning a new skill as part of a service project that started more than 100 miles from Sterling.
SHS English teacher Lauren Fritz said the Knitty Gritty Project teaches students how to knit scarves, which are then donated to local elementary schools. Fritz's students recently donated 105 scarves to Franklin Elementary School — enough for every first-grade student.
Students begin knitting in late August and continue until winter break. However, Fritz said, the kids who stick with the project enjoy it so much that they often knit regularly in their free time.
"I just teach them how to knit, but then they go home and teach themselves everything else," Fritz said. "I have one girl this year who knitted 30 scarves. The kids run with it, which is amazing. Then, I have kids that will knit things like that purse, which I did not teach them. They just figure it out."
Fritz said the project was started in Solon, Iowa, by Andrea Velasquez and her seventh-grade students in 2003.
"When 9/11 occurred, there was a woman that was a part of Flight 93," Fritz said. "Her name was Lauren Grancolas, and she was pregnant. She was in the middle of writing a book about teaching yourself a new skill. One of the things in her unfinished book was teaching yourself to knit. So, her husband sent the book to Andrea's class, and they started the project that way."
Velasquez kept the project going, and when the tragic Sandy Hook School shooting occurred in December 2012, her students wanted to donate their scarves. However, Fritz said, this was at the point when the Sandy Hook community was no longer taking donations. So, the kids donated the scarves to local elementary school students of low socio-economic status.
In 2020, Velasquez moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where she continued the project with Fritz, who also was teaching in Cedar Rapids at the time. Fritz, a 2015 SHS graduate, moved back to teach at SHS in 2023 and brought the program with her.
"I teach them either at their lunch, my prep or if they're finished early in class," Fritz said. "The teachers here have been amazing. Our kids can knit in class, but when they say, 'OK, materials away,' they put them away. We have no issues with that. So, you'll see kids walking around the school with knitting supplies."
Since then, Fritz has expanded the project to include SHS's Life Skills students, fostering inclusion by integrating students with disabilities with their general education peers.
"If I have a kid in Life Skills that messed up, I'll have one of my students help them fix it on the fly," Fritz said. "That's great because then they're engaging with each other, they're helping, and they're learning how to interact with a student that has a disability when they generally don't get that opportunity."
Before her students begin knitting this year, Fritz is having them choose where the scarves will go by having them research which local schools are in need.
Fritz said the project keeps stocked with knitting needles and supplies thanks to local donations and a yearly grant from the Sterling Schools Foundation. To make a donation, email Fritz at lfritz@sps5.org.
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