4th of July Fundraiser for Ukraine

As people in America celebrate the 4th of July with fireworks, gatherings, and barbeques, one mustn't forget about others in this world. We share the planet together, and we are all one species, trying to live our best life.

It's common knowledge that Ukraine has been invaded by Russia, and it's been that way for several months now. But as the media shifts away from Ukraine and focuses on more local and recent issues, Ukraine seems... buried underground. At least, that's the way it seemed to Charitable Crochet before they went to Diablo Foods to do their 4th of July Crochet Fundraiser.

Our journey to Diablo Foods was quite a long and rough one. After calling large companies such as Safeway, Whole Foods, CVS, and being told "no" by all of them, we sat down and pondered. What started as a hopeful suggestion turned into a dream come true; Diablo Foods, a locally-owned business, agreed.

To our pleasant surprise, we did not sell many finished products. You may be wondering, "Then how did you guys raise over $350?" Well, the people of Lafayette were so kind to give us many donations. We would often receive $20 in donations, and the person wouldn't take anything. That just shows the kindness in peoples' hearts.

Additionally, we often received comments such as "Wow! You guys are so talented!" or "This is such a good cause!" and get buckets of donations. However, this was no easy feat to pull off.

The preparation leading up to the fundraiser was grueling. We made sure to make high quality signs that would make us seem professional. That involved laying and hunching over the floor for hours while carefully cutting, painting, and gluing letters on. The sign needed to be big and attractive in order to grab customers' attention. After that, we tagged most of the items and created a rough design for our display (although we didn't really adhere to that...). Tagging was easy enough though, so it made up for some of the pain from the sign-making.

All of our crochet items were packed into 2 giant bags that looked like trash. Except, there was gold instead of trash inside.

The morning of the fundraiser, both of us were so jittery. It was like we ate buckets of sugar for breakfast. Maybe we did *evil laughter*. But anyways, we made sure to pack lots of things to keep us entertained during the long 4 hours. Actually, they passed by quite quickly.

We were kept busy by a never ending stream of customers coming and asking about our items. Many gave us a donation and left, and we are so so grateful for those who gave anything, even $1. In the times when we weren't swamped by people, we crocheted. Why, you ask? Well, to make more things to sell. We packed a mini tagging kit in case something went wrong (nothing did surprisingly!), but we mainly used it on tagging new items we made fresh off the hook.