The Scarf Initiative: Local woman inspires others to warm Pakistani girls
PrintNov. 19--Inspired by the book "Three Cups of Tea," by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, local publicist and blogger Kathryn Hall felt moved to help warm Pakistani villagers in the frigid Karakoram Mountains.
"Three Cups of Tea" is the story of Greg Mortenson, a mountaineer who nearly died trying to climb K-2, the second tallest mountain in the world. He was nursed back to health by Pakistani villagers, and when he returned to the states, he dedicated his time to building schools for Pakistani girls.
"When you read the stories about mountaineers going to Pakistan," said Hall, "you become profoundly aware of how utterly cold it is there. I happen to like to dress people; it's part of how I'm wired."
Having once heard an English woman say, "There's no such thing as bad weather, there's only bad clothes," Hall sent out a call for knitters on her blog, plantwhateverbringsyoujoy.com, with a plan to send scarves to young girls in Pakistan. The response was overwhelming, and soon warm scarves started coming in from around the world.
"I was just astounded that people wrote to me from all over," said Hall. "So scarves started coming in from the U.K., from Canada, from all over the United States."
The story of the Scarf Initiative spread like wildfire over the Internet, said Hall, until it was being posted by eight other blogs and being distributed by a very large mailing list. The stories that started coming in to Hall often moved her to tears.
"This woman, for example,
wrote to me and said I'm in India, but I want to do this but I don't know if I'll be back in the states in time to do this,'" said Hall. "So she went to New Delhi and searched New Delhi high and low for knitting needles and yarn so she could participate. She started it in India and then came back to Maryland and sent it to me. Things like that, people that went out of the way to participate."
Hall's wave of creativity, as she called it, seemed contagious. Many women, who had little time in their lives for knitting, found that this project reawakened their crafty natures. Hall received a great many messages of thanks from women who felt that they were reconnecting with something they hadn't known they'd lost.
The next step for Hall was figuring out how to get these scarves to Pakistan. First she tried Mortenson's organization, but found it was only equipped to handle donations of money.
"I'm a cliff jumper," said Hall. "I'm the kind of person that jumps off a cliff and then figures it out later. I know it will work out, that's my underlying belief system. It will work out. No matter how risky it is, it'll work out."
Taking this philosophy to heart, Hall searched the Internet and found Nazir Sabir, a world-renowned trekker with an expedition company in Pakistan. Hall read that Sabir had helped out during the last big earthquake in Pakistan, so she was confident that he knew how to disseminate good to people in remote areas of that country.
"I wrote to him and just thought, what do I have to lose, he's going to say yes or no," said Hall, "and he wrote back the most gracious letter, so appreciative and he said I will absolutely help you do this.' He reassured me that they would take photographs of girls wearing scarves and send them back to us so my readers can have the satisfaction of seeing the scarves around the necks of little girls."
The scarves are going to a village called Askole, the last bastion of civilization before mountaineers head into the Karakoram Mountains. More than 70 scarves will be shipped out Friday, with a shipping cost of somewhere between $500 and $600, FedEx to Islamabad. This Thursday, the colorful scarves will be on display at Tierra: Wine, Garden, Art from 5 to 8 p.m.
The entire adventure has proven to Hall that gardening blogs can have a far-reaching impact. Hall's blog, plantwhateverbringsyoujoy.com, is her way of reaching the world.
"I have over 14,000 readers a month," said Hall, "and it keeps going up every month, and this initiative is definitely driving up my numbers, because it's being talked about. The truth is that I view gardening as a way to talk about life, wisdom, and spiritual practices and spiritual lessons. For me the garden is a metaphor. Somebody wrote yesterday and said I think your purpose is to inspire,' and I think that's true. I think my blog is primarily a vehicle to inspire people."
Richard Rosier can be reached at udjfeatures@pacific.net
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