The Great Blanket Debate

I like animals, and wish I could do something for them but don’t have a lot of money to donate directly. I use and promote a search engine called Goodsearch, but that’s not much. Of the limited skills I have, I know how to crochet, so the idea of making blankets for shelter animals seemed logical. Give them something to make their lives a little more comfortable or tolerable. I don’t particularly want to volunteer with people or get attached to the animals, so it seemed a logical choice, and something I could do on my own time. Suffice it to say I did sufficient soul-searching on multiple occasions that always came to the conclusion this was probably the most reasonable way for me to volunteer.

You might think that once this choice has been made, it would be relatively easy to follow through and go ahead and make blankets. Not so.

First is the issue of who would actually want blankets as donations anymore. I called and e-mailed various organizations in my community to see who might want them, so I could make them to an appropriate size they could use. No one wanted them. One place said blankets might be acceptable if they made good rags, but they would need to be very absorbent. Hmmm. Another place said they would really prefer cash.

Finally an organization said they could use the blankets as fund-raising items. Sure, sounds good. The animals ultimately benefit. Then saw my blanket-making abilities, and were not impressed. They said they already had someone who used more intricate patterns and expensive yarn. I collect yarn from thrift stores and yard sales, and got the regular $2 a skein variety, whereas their volunteer used the $4-8 specialty/cutesy yarn. At a skein a blanket, and selling them for $5 a piece, I couldn’t quite see what the point was. And not being good at following patterns (believe me, I’ve tried), I guess my skill is somewhat limited.

A relative of mine lives in a larger city, so I attempted to search for places there. One place said certainly, they’d like some blankets, and could they add me to their mailing list. Silly me, I gave them my home address, to which they responded they didn't want donations from me and I should contribute to my own community.

From there searched the internet for foundations that might want blankets, but they are in very low demand. And when you ask to confirm they want blankets & ask what sizes, they usually tell me no thank you, they just haven’t updated their webpage in a while. I even have a thing at work that would give an organization $250.00 if I volunteered 25 hours to something like this, and even with that I couldn’t “bribe” places to take blankets.

A friend of mine e-mailed me a couple of sites that seem to be for the express purpose of providing shelter animals with blankets and toys. They even had specifications for sizes wanted, and patterns to make the blankets. You’d think I’d finally found something. But wait, there’s more.

One site said they preferred fiber filled blankets, and had instructions to make them. Another site said how awful fiber filled blankets are because they don’t wash well, and how shelters hardly accept them anymore. Both sites seemed to be central locations to donate blankets that would then disperse them as needed. I guess I could just point my finger at one and follow their rules, but if I'm going to pay to ship these out—I don’t want to send them something useless. And it seemed odd to have such disparate ideas and I was evidently looking for the holy grail of animal blanket guidelines.

And if I’m to be completely honest, crocheting a blanket takes a lot more time than say, buying fleece fabric and cutting it into appropriate sizes. Fleece launders well, doesn’t fray or snag, and animals prefer its ability to insulate and reflect body heat. So my method of yarn blankets is pretty much useless, is it not? It’s probably great if you want to kill a lot of time and pretend you’re doing something worthwhile. But any way you slice it, it’s not very worthwhile. Which unfortunately makes me feel un-worthwhile.

I also tried the idea of donating home-made toys. A couple places accepted them without much enthusiasm. Then I tried the local humane society, and was told they didn’t want to give the cats toys because they are in cages, and they don’t want the cats trying to play with things in such confined areas. Yes, they’re cold, scared, and miserable; let’s make sure we don’t do anything to break that trend. Don’t want them to move around too much. Should we sedate them while we’re at it?

So much for that idea.