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  • Group Knit Together by Aid Project

    Los Angeles Times, CA
    July 4 2005

    Group Knit Together by Aid Project

    Language and cultural barriers fall as a diverse assortment of
    seniors unites behind a common cause and a shared talent.

    By Ann M. Simmons, Times Staff Writer


    A cacophony of Korean, Spanish, Chinese, Armenian and English filled
    the room as a gaggle of seniors armed with crochet and knitting
    needles huddled around a long table piled high with woolen garments
    and multicolored yarn.

    Their mission is to knit and crochet clothing that will be donated to
    homeless shelters and battered women's homes.

    But the effort - known as Project HANDS, or Helping Angels National
    Donated Support - is giving these seniors more than just a chance to
    let their fingers work for charity. It is exposing them to ethnic
    diversity and helping them to foster friendships and cultural
    understanding they might otherwise have missed.

    "That side is Mexicans," said Baidzar "Sunshine" Sanossian, pointing
    to two Latinas sitting across the table from her one recent Friday.
    "There's the Philippines right next to me here. We are Armenian. But
    we like to join and make one family." At 93, Sanossian is the most
    senior participant of the chapter of Project HANDS, which meets once
    a week in a community room at the Vistas retirement housing facility
    in Van Nuys.

    It is the camaraderie that most appeals to Sanossian, a retired
    registered nurse. An ethnic Armenian who was born in Lebanon and
    educated in Israel, she mainly associates with pals Armine Bezdjian,
    82, also from Lebanon, and Janet Kasparian, 73, a native of the
    former Soviet republic of Armenia.

    But meeting for a few hours each Friday afternoon to knit with 20 or
    more residents from different ethnic backgrounds has exposed
    Sanossian to a cultural kaleidoscope. She showed off a scarf of
    baby-blue wool she recently finished knitting and playfully draped a
    bright orange shawl over her head, causing her knitting partners to
    gesture and chuckle.

    "It brings all the languages, cultures, races and generations
    together," said Judy A. Shaw, service coordinator manager for
    Retirement Housing Foundation, a nonprofit group that provides
    services for older adults and runs Vistas. "They can't speak the same
    language. They don't all have the same cultural background. But the
    thing they have in common is good hearts. And they have commonality
    in that they know how to knit and crochet."

    At Vistas, located along a busy thoroughfare, 22% of residents are
    Korean, 19% are Latino and 15% are Russian speakers, according to the
    facility's manager, Suki Kim. The remaining hodgepodge of
    nationalities includes immigrants from Lebanon, Iran, China, Cuban,
    Chile and the Philippines, to name a few.

    "They may speak different languages, but they are all in their senior
    years, and they are in the same boat no matter where they came from,"
    Kim said. "They see different people in the same situation, and they
    get comfort from that." It is clearly easier for the elderly
    participants to communicate with those who share a common tongue. But
    many choose to employ the physical lexis of handicraft.

    They peak and point over their colleagues' shoulders and advise about
    stitching methods and styles by touching and showing. They take turns
    inspecting or trying on the neatly folded mounds of women's hats,
    shawls, scarves and gloves, the children's vests and sweaters, and
    babies' blankets. Vistas' residents have so far donated six boxes of
    such items to two Los Angeles-area shelters for battered women.

    Kesun Kim, 78, originally from Korea and a 12-year resident of the
    83-unit Vistas, used to associate mainly with Korean speakers before
    joining Project HANDS. Now she proudly recites a few words that she
    picked up from her knitting mates.

    "Uno, dos, amigo, poquito, frio," she said, giggling as she chirped
    the Spanish words for one, two, friend, very little and cold. The
    fellow knitters, who happened to be from Cuba and Chile, raised their
    eyebrows and shyly smiled.

    Filipina Josefina De Leon, 78, one of a handful who can converse with
    relative ease in English, merrily chimed in that she also knows the
    Spanish word for tomorrow, manana.

    "And I can count to a million in Spanish," she said with a laugh.

    When Ok Whan Chang, 82, read about Project HANDS in a local
    Korean-language newspaper, she couldn't stay away.

    Not a resident of Vistas, she has to travel for an hour on two buses
    from her home in Northridge each Friday.

    "I don't mind the trip," said Chang, an ethnic Korean who was born in
    Manchuria in northeast China and now has friends from Cuba, Chile and
    Mexico. "I want to help other people. And knitting is my talent."

    Chang proudly held up a gray sweater and a burgundy vest that she
    made in just four days.

    Hundreds of seniors from 49 Retirement Housing Foundation communities
    have adopted Project HANDS and have given more than 2,430 articles of
    clothing to homeless children, according to Shaw. The average age of
    the participants is 80.

    At least 19 other senior facilities have expressed a wish to start
    the project, which relies on donated yarn. The bulk so far has come
    from Dai-Ho Choi, president of the Korean Apparel Manufacturers Assn.
    He estimated that the thousands of balls of brightly colored wool he
    has contributed totaled about $10,000.

    "It's Korean tradition to respect older people," said Choi, a
    first-generation American-born Korean, while visiting Vistas
    recently. "My father is 78 years old. These people here are like my
    parents."

    As the babble of various tongues blended with the faint clicking of
    needles, Carmen Glenn, one of a few American-born Project HANDS
    participants at Vistas, circled the table covered with recently
    completed clothes and blankets, and cream, blue, pink, red and
    burgundy yarn.

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    A native of New Mexico who is fluent in Spanish, Glenn helps
    translate the accented English banter about wool texture and
    stitching methods for participants like Rosalia Baghetti, 71, of
    Chile and Carmen Naveira, an 82-year-old Cuban mother of five,
    grandmother of nine and great-grandmother of 10.

    Arthritis keeps Glenn and her best friend - Jessie Azali, a
    78-year-old Indonesian-born Chinese fluent in Dutch and Chinese -
    from actually knitting or crocheting. But it hasn't stopped them from
    doing their part and having fun.

    "We put on name tags and fold and laugh and talk," Glenn said.

    Suddenly a chorus of "oohs" and "ahs" rang out as someone tried on a
    sweater.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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