B-Group Knits, Crochets for Community Needs
Professor Nancy Hyndman’s Knitting and Crocheting Barnabas Group is meeting needs in the city of Toccoa, Ga., for yet another year. This year, the B-group is donating blankets to the Power House for Kids and hats to the Toccoa Cancer Center.
Items made by students in the Knitting & Crocheting B-group. (Photo: Lillian Greenfield)
Hyndman’s B-group has been meeting for several years now under her leadership with the mission of “ministering to people in need.” Hyndman says their purpose is to bring glory to God by spreading the love of Christ to the recipients of the donated items. In the past, the group has made sweaters for children, as well as hats, scarves, baby hats, blankets, sweaters, and plastic-bag mats for homeless people.
“We pray for the people as we make the things. We get together, we always pray for these people who are going to get these things. And then we take them to Chapel and dedicate them and so the whole school can help us pray for these people,” Hyndman says. “So, they are bathed in prayer… I always ask God…that people sense His presence when they put something on… and know that somebody loves them, and God loves them.”
Power House for Kids is a care and counseling center for children who have been abused or experienced other traumatic events in their lives. The Toccoa Cancer Center provides cancer treatment for residents across Northeast Georgia. Other organizations that the B-Group has donated to in the past include the Shirley Soul Food and Shelter, the Hope Center of Toccoa, and the Toccoa Life Family Resource Center.
“The best ministry I have is in my knitting and crocheting because I can touch many other lives with the love of God that I would not be able to do without this,” Hyndman says.
The Knitting and Crocheting B-Group does not just provide positive transformation in the lives of the recipients of the items, but also transformation in the lives of the students who attend and participate in the group.
“It’s more than doing something for yourself,” Hyndman says. “It’s doing ministry.”
Hyndman says the students who make the items in the B-Group remain anonymous, and the group often doesn’t have direct communication with the recipients of their items.
“Most of the time, we don’t see any [change],” she says. “We often don’t hear back because we don’t know who they are… We’re not doing it for our lifting up, we’re doing it for lifting up God.”
The Knitting & Crocheting B-Group meets every Thursday at 10 a.m. in the Center for Academic Success. (Photo: Lillian Greenfield)
Hyndman’s Knitting and Crocheting B-Group meets in the Center for Academic Success every Thursday at 10 a.m. This semester’s items will be prayed over and dedicated during the Grace Alford Chapel service at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.