By Mary Burke
Living into the mission of Jesus by supporting their church and community was something that Del and Myrna Forsythe, members of the Vicksburg United Methodist Church, did selflessly and graciously.
A generous donation from their estate was given to the church to support the community and embody the church’s mission: transforming the world. This is where the idea of Knitting in November was born. Myrna was an avid crafter and crocheter so trying to tie her passion into supporting the community was a natural idea that was inspired during a church council meeting.
The church council had several goals for this project, the first being to provide hats, scarves, and mittens to South County Community Services. The second was to bring people with the talents and skills together to knit and crochet those hats, mittens, and scarves and share in the giving. Finally, it was important to the council to support local merchants by purchasing door prizes to use in a raffle.
With the pandemic and the downtown construction happening this year, the council wanted to be able to give back to the businesses as well. On November 6th and 13th, knitters and crocheters came together to work their magic to accomplish the task. During that time, we were also fortunate enough to have knitters drop off hats and scarves that they had worked on all year long. In the end over 300 items were created to be donated and sold to support continuing this next year. Those participating loved it so much that there are plans for this to be a monthly event throughout the year.