Scarf Bombing in Tillsonburg warms the heart
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The amount of donations for the fourth Talk Tillsonburg Scarf Bombing Saturday was "intense."
"We had a lot of donations," said Talk Tillsonburg organizer Catherine Lyn Ryan, who was joined Saturday at 7:30 a.m. by first-time scarf bombing volunteers Luciana Mazza and Rebecca Henry, and returning volunteers Nicole Tait and her son Caden.
"We spent probably three-and-a-half hours yesterday tagging everything I had, and she (Mazza) had already tagged a box and a bag at home. Everything together, I'd say probably 150-200 items, if you add everything together. Hats, mitts, scarves, and sweaters. We had a couple blankets, too, but we'll give those to The Salvation Army."
Tait said she volunteered "Just to give back to the society, and teach him (Caden) a sense of community."
Henry said she was happy to pitch attaching scarves, hats, and mitts - each tagged with a friendly note - to railings/fences/poles in front of The Town Centre.
"I just want to help out the community," said Henry. "Help Cathy Lyn help out the community."
"She helped at the yard sale, too," Ryan noted.
All of the donated cold-weather clothing items were tied to convenient to reach places in front of The Town Centre at 200 Broadway. Many of them had hand-written tags that read, 'If you are cold, I am warm! Take me down and take me home!'
Some of the items were left over from the Talk Tillsonburg Children Shop for Christmas event, said Ryan, and some were made just for the Scarf Bombing, noting sweaters from Susan Master-Charby.
"She donated those... and they're all handmade. They're beautiful, really beautiful. That striped one, we found a hat that matched perfectly. It was like it was meant to be. They're gorgeous sweaters.
"Where's our smallest item?" Ryan asked Mazza. "It's a pair of mitts about 'that' big and this little, tiny, tiny hat. We tied them together. They are so small and so adorable. Little baby mitts and little baby hat, they're as cute as can be.
"There's a lot of stuff. I figure it should go quickly, it's all very nice stuff."
Temperatures were well below 0 C Saturday (-6), although it warm up later in the week.
"People have said you should do this in December, but I say, 'I can't predict the weather.' We might not have snow in December. In January, even if it's not snowy-blowy, you know it's going to be cold."
Saturday's Scarf Bombing was the fourth of its kind in Tillsonburg, but the third annual.
"We had two the first year," said Ryan. "We had a major snow storm the first year and we had so many donations we had to do another one. I remember the stuff was gone by like noon the first year."
Plans are already being made for the next Children Shop for Christmas event in 2017.
"We're already working on plans for that. And a Seniors' Tree, where seniors can write their wishes of what they would like for Christmas. People buy the gifts, tag them and put them under the tree. They did one at the Woodstock Walmart this year, the employees. I want to implement that in 2017 so there's something for seniors. There are a lot of seniors who deserve to have gifts, too."