Boutte resident Hattie “Sue” St. Claire, 79, is an avid crocheter with a purpose – she crochets custom-made neck scarves for the homeless in New Orleans and elsewhere.
St. Claire, who has lived in St. Charles Parish for most of her life, said she first learned to crochet at the age of nine. It was a hobby she carried on for decades, discontinuing only in her later years when her hands began to hurt after long periods of crocheting.
She picked up her crochet needles once again a few years ago, when a member of Luling area New Life Community Church she attends told her about a ministry someone in her church started.
“This lady’s name is Janice Blocker – she’s got this ministry where she makes neck scarves to send to New Orleans, and they give them out to people who are in the cold in winter time, and don’t have anywhere to live,” St. Clarie explained.
St. Claire, who lives alone and can no longer drive due to her limited vision, felt this was an ideal project she had ample skills and time to help with. She initially made two or three neck scarves, and when her hands felt well enough afterwards, she decided to keep going.
“It ended up that I made over 100 scarves during the pandemic,” St. Claire said of one of her early batches of scarf work.
Church members brought the scarves to New Orleans, where they were distributed to the homeless population there. She has been a scarf-making machine ever since, turning out hundreds of scarves for the homeless.
In the fall of last year, church members helped St. Claire ship around 100 of her handmade neck scarves to another church in New York state, an area with a much colder climate, where her scarves were distributed to homeless individuals there in need.
“She is just a very giving spirit,” Kathy Cedro, a fellow church member at New Life Community Church said of St. Claire, whom she has known for around 10 years. “She does not have a lot personally, but anything she has, she wants to share…and she likes to take care of people.”
Throughout the extreme heat of this summer, St. Claire has been busy at work stockpiling neck scarves to hand out once again to homeless in the New Orleans area, once the weather turns colder.
St. Claire can typically make around one scarf per day, limited only by her hands which tend to flare up from arthritis. She makes around 15 or 16 scarves in a batch, which she then deposits at her church’s storage room for safekeeping, stocking up on yarn once again before making another batch.
“I probably spend about three of four hours to make one [scarf],” St. Claire said.
She makes the scarves using yarn donated by local church members, choosing patterns and designs based on whatever yarn she has available at the time. During football season last year, she made a number of purple and gold scarves in LSU colors.
At 79, St. Claire said she will keep going, producing as many scarves as her body will physically allow her to make.
“I plan to continue as long as I can,” St. Claire said.
As to what she personally gets out of the project, St. Claire said wants the scarf project to bring warmth and kindness to the homeless she makes them for, and hopes that the scarves may also serve as a reminder to people who are more fortunate.
“I’m hoping it makes people realize that there are some other good people in this world, and to thank God for what they have, because most of these [homeless] people don’t have anything; they live in tents,” St. Claire said. “I just want [the homeless] to know that there’s someone, somewhere that loves them.”
Local residents wishing to donate yarn to St. Claire’s scarf project for the homeless can drop off their yarn donations at the New Life Fellowship Church, located at 134 Lakewood Drive in Luling.
Be the first to comment