School bags for "SD Juara" students

 

On Saturday 9th August 2008, Fenny, Katrin and Lenny went to SD Juara to give the school bags to the 4th and 5th year students. They give 29 school bags in total. They arrived at SD juara around 09.00 AM and when they arrived, the students, the teachers and staff from rumah zakat were already waiting for them.

 

Most Indonesian school doesn't have holiday on Saturday, so Fenny and friends thought that the students came to study. It turns out that the students came just to welcome them.

 

The first program was introduction. One of the teacher introduce the headmaster and other teachers, and also the children. And then there was a welcome speech from the headmaster. From our side, Lenny gives a short speech. After that it was the Question and Answer session.

 

Here are some of their Questions and our Answers:

Student: How many branches does your club have?

Fenny: The From DC with Love is a knitting group which has many members from all over Indonesia, and even abroad. So we don't have a branch because we can contact each other via the internet, email, and web site. Sometime we meet offline to share knitting and crocheting and to get to know each other.

 

Student: how long does it take to make a square?

Katrin: It took about an hour to make a square. If you are good at it, it will take less time (a square sample was handed over to the students)

 

Student: what does the bag look like? Can't wait to see it.

Katrin: It's a shoulder bag, with different colors for boys and girls

 

Student: can you teach us to make one?

Fenny + Katrin: If you really want to learn, we can arrange something. We can come on Sunday, because we have to work from Monday to Saturday

 

And then there was poem reading and some letters from the Koran by the students. After that the bags are distributed to the students. The bags are distributed to the 4th and 5th grade students, five students at a time came forward, received the bag, wear it, and do a group photo.

 

The students were very happy receiving the new bags. Some students wears the bag right away, they empty their old bag, and put the contents to the new bag.

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Seeing those happy faces on the students and their enthusiasm to learn crocheting made us feel very happy too. We hope all the members who already sent their square can see, how we use the squares and give it to those who need it. We would like to thank you for all square contributor, for every donor and also for all the prayer that you gave for us. We still need to make school bags for another 47 students, so if you can crochet and want to share your talent and your left over stash, we invite you to join our group.

 

For anyone who lives in Bandung and want to help teaching crochet for the students, please contact us. Any hook or yarn that you don't need anymore, we are more than happy to receive and give it to those who need it. 

Bags to Deliver August 9th 2008

These are some bags that we will deliver tomorrow. We already upload 16 bags previously, so we just upload the rest of it. You may see how your squares become bags. Thank you for everyone who support this project. We will deliver only for 2 classes first, so the school bags project is still open. We are still waiting for your squares or your school bags. Thank you for everyone who participated.

 

For anyone who want to come to SD Juara tomorrow, please feel free to contact us. We invite everyone to come, we can also make a mini gathering of this group.

And these are a little bit behind the scene how we prepare for tomorrow.

9 School bags finished

These are how the school bags look like with the strap and zipper and lining inside. Can you find your squares on these 9 bags? If you can't just be patient, maybe your squares are still on joining progress.

 

Don't you feel amaze how the squares became beautiful bags? Thanks to Fenny and Katrien for their hard work, and of course thanks to all of you who sent the squares to us.

 

 

Another school bag finished

 

This is another school bag that Fenny had joined yesterday.

Beautiful, isn't it?

Progress on School Bags Project

 

These weeks our joining coordinator are busy making the school bags. Some of our members also sent the school bags that they made from squares. We really appreciate what they did. Now these are some squares and bag that we received lately and also some squares that we've joined into school bags (still need to add the strap and lining).

 

 

 

	These are from Nita Surabaya. She sent 6 big squares that she made as school bags. She made 2 shoulder bags and 1 back pack. Aren't they beautiful?

 

And these are 8 school bags that Fenny and Katrien are joined so far.

 

Last but not least, these are the squares that we received from Arleen. She sent 2 big squares and 3 squares from pattern 3.

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For all of you who already sent the squares, you can see how we use your squares into the school bags. Thank you for all the hard work. We plan to give the school bags at the end of this month (July 2008). If you can, please send us the squares as soon as possible, but if you cannot make it, just sent it, we will use your squares for our next projects.

More Bags and Squares Received

 

 

We received 3 big squares from mbak Yenny - Bandung. And from 2 of her squares, we already join, add the bag strap and sew the zipper, and you can see the results here. Thank you mbak Yenny, the squares are very beautiful.

 

    And this is another bag that is joined from small squares. Mbak Fenny uses 4 small squares and added stripes motif to fill in the squares. Thank you mbak Fenny, you do a great job!.

 

So far, we only finisihed 4 bags, still many to go. We are waiting for your squares any size would be fine.

 

Few more weeks left, many bags need to make, let's work together.

Donations Received and Progress on School Bag Project

Here are a few updates on our urgent school bag project.

• Mbak Thata has made 1 bag from  modification of pattern 1, she also made some other big squares which she modified from patttern 1. 

• We received more squares from Arleen - Jakarta. She made 2 squares from pattern 2, and 2 big squares which she modified from pattern 1.

• We received some other donations such as 6 balls of yarns from Rika (Rp 60.000), and money to buy about 9 balls of yarns from Mas Gogon (Rp.90.000). Both Rika and Mas Gogon are Amanda's friend who wants to participate on our project but cannot do crochet or knitting. Right now Amanda also working on the 6 balls of yarn to make more squares. The rest of the yarn will be used for joining the squares. Recently our yarn coordinators using their own yarn to join the squares as their donations.
• We received 12 balls of yarn from Surabaya but the sender wants to be anonym.
• We received one roll of bag strap from Mbak Fenny. We need the bag strap to make sure the bag can carry more books and also to accelerate the finishing products . One pack of bag strap is around (Rp. 45.000)
• We received donations to buy 60 strap fasteners (Rp 60.000), we also bought 120 ring and also 60 zipper for the bag but right now we use the money from one of us. The zipper price is Rp 1.000 per piece and the for 120 ring (60 pairs) we spent Rp 60.000. If you want to donate money to pay our member's money back, we are very thankful to you.

Currently some of our members are working on more bigger squares (modification from pattern 1), but still, we are short of number. We are invite you to join us on making squares, joining the squares and make it as bag, or even make bags from the squares and we only need to add the straps. This project will be finish on the end of July 2008, so we only have a few more weeks left.

 

Thank you for Mbak Thata, Arleen, Rika, Mas Gogon, Amanda and Mbak Fenny with your support. Let's work together on this charity project. Let's do it with empathy not only sympathy.