Elephants Remember Joplin began by a little girl, Cee Cee, who wanted to do something to help tornado victims in Joplin, Missouri so she decided to knit elephants that we could send to the kids there. We didn’t know anyone in Joplin, she just saw the pictures and heard about the devastation and wanted to help out. After talking to one of my friends online, we thought it would be fun to have a facebook page and maybe other knitters would want to join in or we could raise a little money for the Red Cross and 
Elephants Remember Joplin was born. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8AEGybkGEw This news story ran on Lex18 last fall and sort of summarizes her efforts to help Joplin. She raised $3400 and we went to Joplin and met first responders and got to spend the day with children who lost everything in that tornado.
Elephants Remember Joplin was born. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8AEGybkGEw This news story ran on Lex18 last fall and sort of summarizes her efforts to help Joplin. She raised $3400 and we went to Joplin and met first responders and got to spend the day with children who lost everything in that tornado.After getting back from Joplin we decided to keep raising money through auctioning off elephants and encouraging people to donate to Homes of Hope for Joplin.
In early January, Benjamin Levisay and I crossed paths on facebook and he loved Cee Cee and wanted to bring her to Stitches to teach knitting elephants and to share her love of knitting to help others. At Stitches Midwest Cee Cee will be the youngest teacher ever and people can attend her Parade of Elephants and get to knit their own elephant out of Cee Cee’s custom colorway (done by Fiesta yarns). Those that don’t knit can crochet an elephant with Cee Cee’s teaching partner The Crochet Dude, Drew Emborsky. There will also be an elephant auction on the convention floor with the sponsors of Stitches Midwest. Sponsors donated yarn to Cee Cee and she created some fabulous elephants. We never sell the elephants so the only way to get one of Cee Cee’s elephants is to be given one or to purchase one at auction. The proceeds from the auction will also benefit Homes of Hope for Joplin.
Her class is on Friday August 10th from 11:15-12:45.
So she turned to her knitting. One month later, she had knit 13 elephants for the children, and as the story took hold on Facebook, raised over $3,000 in pledges for the relief efforts. Elephants Remember Joplin had begun. Since then, she has been interviewed by TV stations, made public appearances, and been a teacher at STITCHES Midwest where all proceeds from the class were donated to Homes for Hope Joplin. Fiesta Yarns was a proud sponsor of the Elephant Parade event, and donated all of the Elephant kits for 75 students.