Every Monday during lunch in room D11, the BCCHS Crochet Club holds their weekly meetings. However, any student is welcome to come in at lunch or after school to ask Señora Molinaro about crocheting, sewing, Spanish, or life in general.

“Anyone can learn crochet!” or so Molinaro, the club’s Adviser, says. Crochet is the forming of loops into beautiful patterns of yarn or any other kind of string. Molinaro has a different definition, “Therapy. You’re sitting and working with your hands in repetitive movements. It’s meditation. It’s socializing. It brings people together.” Indeed it does. If one were to walk into the crochet club, they would find a diverse array of people from the quiet, kept-to-themselves kind to the jock and the too-cool-for-school kind. The best part is that everyone teaches each other what they know.

For five years, the crochet club has been brimming with pride as they not only make themselves heartwarming trinkets such as scarves, hats, hacky sacks, and sweaters, but they also warm hearts by sending small crocheted squares to the non-profit organization Warm Up America. Warm Up America was started in 1991 in a small Wisconsin town by Evie Rosen who decided to make afghans (knitted blankets) for neighbors in need. After the squares are sent, they are joined together to form the blankets for the homeless and other people in need. Last year, Crochet Club made beanies for cancer patients, and before that it was beanies for preemies(premature babies). One year it was Operation Gratitude, making scarves for soldiers. Molinaro notes, “It gets the kids involved. It makes them feel like they’re apart of something more.”

Our very own Crochet Club was established in the fall of 2010. It all started with Molinaro and some students. Molinaro is always crocheting something, and it didn’t go unnoticed by her students, “Once the kids got interested, they wanted to learn. They’re nosy little boogers,” says Molinaro. The Crochet Club was started in hopes to teach a valuable and dying craft, “They’re producing something. It’s fun, useful, practical. It’s a gift of love. It’s done from the heart,” says Molinaro. She can crochet scarves and hats, and she loves to make ponchos though they take a long time to make. She rarely makes sweaters, but she does make them for babies. She can teach any of these crafts to anyone willing to learn, whether or not they’re a part of the club. “But,” comments Molinaro, “once they start they’ll get hooked.”