This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Staff writer

After hearing that the Toys for Joy area collection site had run out of hats for the youngsters last year, Leslie Anderson set about changing that.

Anderson took up her yarn and crochet needle and started to work.

From March to the end of August, the Isanti woman crocheted 111 hats for Toys for Joy, which she donated at her work site, St. Francis Village Bank.

Using yarn given to her and picked up from thrift shops, Anderson set to work on hats of sage green and pink.

“I had to go out and buy some boy colors, like camo(uflage) and black,” she said.

In a weekend, Anderson crocheted up to 10 hats.

“I crocheted continually...four to five (hats) in an hour,” Anderson said.

Of course, her housework suffers then, she said.

Although Anderson could have crocheted mittens or scarves, she chose hats.

“I thought I could make more hats and everybody needs a hat in the winter,” she said.

Most of the crocheting was done while Anderson was relaxing at home.

“I can’t just sit down and watch television. I have a lot of nervous energy and crocheting is like therapy for me,” she said.

Anderson learned to crochet in her 20s with the help of her co-workers and mother.

Over the years she has perfected her craft.

When she would ride with her husband, a former truck driver, Anderson would take along her yarn and crochet needles.

Now the couple do a lot of motorcycling in the  summer.

“I still haven’t figured out how to crochet while on the back of the bike – but I’m working on it,” Anderson said.

All of her crocheted items are made as gifts for  other people. She has crocheted scarves for friends and donated blankets to the hospital.

“I felt bad because (there are) kids who may get nothing for Christmas,” Anderson said.

If the family has to make a choice between a hat for their child or food, they will choose the food, she said.

Anderson said she wants to give children a gift that they will use every day.

“I am hoping it will mean a lot to them and it is something they can pass down to younger brothers and sisters,” she said.

This is the first crocheted donation Anderson has made to Toys for Joy, but she has joined her co-workers in past years organizing the Toys for Joy donations at the Anoka Armory.

“My goal was 100. The extra came in because I had  extra yarn,” Anderson said.

At first Anderson kept her goal to herself.

“I didn’t tell anyone until I reached 75 (hats),” she said.

Then Anderson approached Karen Moehring, Village Bank’s Toys for Joy coordinator, to see if she could donate them.

Getting 111 hats was amazing. Anderson “is an overachiever,” Moehring said.

There have been a few large quantity donations come in, like the man who gave his entire Hot Wheels collection last year, but nothing has been handmade, she said.

Although the name Toys for Joy leads everyone to think it’s only new and unwrapped toy donations, Toys for Joy also accepts gift cards, cash, food, new personal grooming items and new clothing, Moehring said.

All of the hats, like other donations to Toys for Joy, run by the North Metro Realtors Association, go to families in Anoka County.

Anderson’s next goal is to make hats and mittens for the homeless families with children — receiving help from Cambridge-based New Pathways and its Interfaith Hospitality Network program — who will be spending Christmas at her church in Cambridge.

“I’m hoping to make 20-25 sets,” for the boys and girls that will be there, she said.

For more information on Toys for Joy, go the Web site www.toysforjoymn.org.

The five Village Banks will be collecting donations until Dec. 11.

Tammy Sakry is at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it