Vision

To provide students with an opportunity to learn new skills (knitting, crocheting, felting) to make crafts and products for themselves, as gifts and as products they can sell.

To repurpose crafting materials community members no longer wanted and to turn those materials into usable products by students (clothing, bags, fidget toys, etc).

To ensure that students interested in learning new skills had a safe and welcoming space to come to each week to share their creations, to work with each other and to practice new skills using the repurposed and recycled materials donated to us.

Action

Every Wednesday, students who were interested in participating in Fibre Club were welcomed to join in our classroom space. Students from grade 7-9 actively attended and participated in fibre club, learned new skills, created products they might otherwise not have created and built confidence in their ability and skills.

Several students have gone on to make and sell their creations (stuffed jellyfish, shirts, bags, stuffies, etc) and have been commissioned by friends and family to make creations based on previous creations.

Students were encouraged to seek out projects they wanted to work on , and if they needed help finding materials, or how to start/complete the project, we would do that as a group each week.

Reflection & Celebration

While we started the year with almost 40 students keen to participate in the Fibre club, over the weeks, our dwindled down to about 10 students who reliably came each week. Several students joined us later in the year and have continued to join the club. Finding students passionate about crafting, creating and learning was a huge celebration. In addition to students finding like minded folks, it was a great opportunity for students to celebrate their creations with each other. Each week students would bring in things they had completed and share with their peers. Such a great community building opportunity!

In reflecting, I will continue this club again next year, and try to add more of a solution theme to it; to help students think about the impact of their creations (driving less, repurposing things, making long lasting products) and furthermore, I would like to show students how to fix their own clothing to make our personal products last longer!