Postman Adam has been getting an extra workout of late, delivering hundreds of packages to the McKnight household in Reston. College student Molly McKnight and her family volunteered to be the collection point for hats being knitted by people around the world to “make a unique collective visual statement” at the Women’s March on Washington. Adam and his colleagues have already delivered more than 1,000 hats – and they just keep coming! Steve & Stefanie Kamerman
Reston — The McKnight family of Reston may have slightly underestimated exactly what it meant to volunteer their home to serve as the area collection point for the hats being knitted for the Jan. 21 Women’s March on Washington. The project aims to “provide the people of the March a means to make a unique collective visual statement which will help activists be better heard, and to provide people who cannot physically attend a way to represent themselves and support women’s rights and issues.” A sea of pink, pussycat head-shaped caps bobbing along the streets of D.C. should certainly make that visual statement.
Shortly after the project was announced via social media, a few packages containing the pink caps arrived at the McKnight doorstep. A few weeks later, the mail carriers were taking around 5 minutes to scan and log the dozens of parcels arriving. Before long, some 750 hats “decorated” their basement rec room. “And now it’s really taking off. Last week,” said Carrie McKnight, “we got like 500 hats in one day!” Maybe they didn’t quite expect this massive response, but they say they are “ready and more than willing” to do the receiving and the sorting and the juggling that it takes to prepare the hats for their ultimate homes – on the heads of the women and men who will be participating in the March.
MOLLY, the eldest of the McKnight kids, has been the primary “hat worker.” The young Ms. McKnight, who is preparing to transfer as a Junior to a university school in California, explained why she got involved and what the project means to her, as she sat cross-legged amidst a pile of packages, efficiently opening, sorting, and inventorying.
“It started kind of accidently,” she said. Molly’s namesake, a long-time family friend from California, had heard about a group of women who were planning to knit hats for the marchers. She mentioned the project to the the McKnights and Molly and family asked if there was anything that they could do to help. Turns out there was. The founders of the project, Californians Krista Suh and Jayna Zwieman, were looking for someplace to house the hats, made based on a pattern designed by knitting store owner Kat Coyle, until they could be moved to a number of distribution points.
Her initial involvement may have been accidental, but Molly’s growing commitment has been anything but. “Each hat comes with information about who knitted it, where they’re from, and what are issues that are important to them. Some come with longer letters, stories about obstacles and discrimination that they experienced. Some were sending hats in dedication to someone or in the memory of a family member or friend. Some just said that they couldn’t come to the March, but they wanted to still be a part of it. Their stories are really inspiring,” acknowledged Molly.
Stefanie Kamerman is a knitter, but that’s not what had her sitting beside Molly in the McKnight basement, helping her in her sorting duties. “Yes, I am knitting for the project,” she said, but Kamerman is also the official photographer of the endeavour. “I heard about it through the knitting community. I am a writer and a photographer so I just emailed them and asked if they needed help, even though I figured they probably already had a photographer on board. Well, they didn’t – so here I am.”
Like Molly, Kamerman admits that she couldn’t be called an activist before this election. “This is a time of change, even for me,” she said. The married mother to a young daughter, Kamerman voted Democrat for the first time in November, and says that what she has seen and heard and what she believes is at risk, makes her feel that she must do her part. “I will do this, and I will march to show solidarity, to promote caring, kindness and love.”
Molly and Kamerman both feel especially inspired by the letters from older women, “like one 90-year-old lady,” said Molly, “who made several hats and said she was really sad, but angry, too, that we had to march to protect the same rights that she marched for back in the ‘70s. She thanked us for doing this in her place.”
KAMERMAN has a more personal inspiration among the senior set. “My 70-year-old aunt is coming up from Virginia Beach to march with me!”
Both are also pleased that the younger generations seem to be on board, too. Hats, letters and pledges to remain active in working for equality for all came from college and high school students, working moms’ knitting groups and even “a 7-year-old first time knitter.” Hats have even been coming from outside the United States, from places like Great Britain, Belgium and Germany.
“It’s really great,” declared Kamerman, “that people from so many walks of life, all ages, all around this country and the world, and with a variety of issues, are all coming together.” She hopes that after the March, this unity will continue and will raise a “newer conversation.”
Molly is hopeful as well, that the March and the Hat Project will propel more of her generation to get involved to protect the rights of all and to see that “doing the grunt work is just as important to getting things done.” She no doubt had more to add, but it was about that time – the doorbell would soon ring and today’s delivery of hats was about to arrive.
The deadline looms for the hats to be delivered at the Reston “way station.” If you are interested in adding a cap or two to the effort, check out the website www.pussyhatproject.com or visit their Facebook page. The Women’s March on Washington (men are most welcomed) is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 21. More information is available at www.womensmarch.com.