Because the daughter of Chinese language refugees, Margie Chan deeply empathized with Chicago’s newly arrived migrants when she noticed them carrying little greater than T-shirts and sandals regardless of the chilly climate.
“My dad and mom and brothers arrived in Chicago on New 12 months’s Day in 1956. Simply think about it’s 20 levels with about 6 inches of snow on the bottom, and my two older brothers have a look at my dad and mom and go, ‘WTF. That is the place we’re dwelling? Are you guys loopy?’
“However we had my grandfathers right here, these individuals normally have nobody. That’s why, if I’ve the chance to assist, I ought to,” Chan stated.
Over 51,000 asylum-seekers have arrived in Chicago since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott started busing migrants to sanctuary cities in summer season 2022. To accommodate the brand new arrivals, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot arrange short-term shelters.
By the tip of this 12 months, the seven remaining city-run shelters are anticipated to shut their doorways as Chicago merges its shelter programs for asylum-seekers and the unhoused into one community.
Motivated by the migrants and her dad and mom’ experiences as refugees from Taishan, Guangdong, fleeing Mao Tse-tung’s management as a political chief below the Refugee Reduction Act of 1953, Chan needed to assist.
Chan, 68, of Rogers Park, launched 500 Hats for Refugees in September 2023, hoping to equip asylum-seekers for the Midwest winter.
Chan selected the identify of her initiative as a play on phrases impressed by the Dr. Seuss guide “The five hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins,” a nod to her days as a youngsters’s librarian. Within the guide, the character Bartholomew Cubbins, like Chan, has a connection to hats.
The initiative offers handmade knitted hats constructed from acrylic yarn to refugees, migrants and people in want.
“I felt unhealthy,” Chan stated. “I’m positive these individuals had no expectations of coming to some place chilly. Oftentimes, I noticed lots of them in T-shirts and sandals in my neighborhood. I believed, ‘Why not make some hats for them?’”
Figuring out she couldn’t knit hundreds of hats alone, Chan joined on-line crafting teams and recruited her associates. As soon as she had rallied knitters and supporters, her mission to maintain heads heat was able to get going.
“This solely runs on donations, and I present everybody with the handle to ship the hats. I get packages from throughout: California, Texas, which I discovered fascinating; Florida — oh my gosh, even packages from Canada and Hawaii,” Chan stated.
Chan collaborates with Chicago Public Libraries, colleges and universities to host “Hats & Sizzling Chocolate” occasions, the place migrants can obtain the hats free of charge.
The primary occasion befell on Nov. 7, 2023, on the Edgewater library department. Chan additionally collaborates with different organizations, akin to nonprofit Operation Heat, on the occasions.
Operation Heat is a nationwide group devoted to serving youngsters by means of neighborhood applications and assets. When partnering with Chan, the nonprofit usually donates new coats and sneakers, serving to to make sure youngsters obtain correctly becoming winter put on.
“My entire factor was that as packages started to reach, the dimensions [of hats] turned much less necessary as a result of there would at all times be a head to suit the hat,” Chan stated.
Christine Yusa, 78, a contributor, has donated three hats for Chan since she discovered about her initiative.
Yusa felt impacted by Chan’s efforts as she migrated from Caracas, Venezuela, to Chicago on the age of 12.
“We’re on this planet for such a short while. We shouldn’t make enemies; we must always make associates. And if it takes a heat hat to make a pal, then that’s what I’ll do,” Yusa stated.
Former CPS principal Pamela Brandt, a pal of Chan’s, stated Chan’s challenge has “given her a brand new lease on life.”
“All of this actually invigorated Margie. Now there are hats all over the place at her residence,” Brandt stated.
Chan has collected over 3,000 hats and continues to obtain extra on daily basis. She has two extra occasions in December scheduled with Operation Heat at library branches in Little Village and Humboldt Park.
Chan views her service as a method to honor her dad and mom and the alternatives she obtained within the U.S., together with her schooling at Northwestern College and Columbia College, the place she earned a bachelor’s diploma in journalism and a grasp’s in library science, respectively.
“It’s my manner of paying it ahead,” she stated. “My brothers and I had many alternatives on this nation, and these refugees search related possibilities.”
500 Hats for Refugees continues to simply accept donations for hats and provides. They are often contacted at 500hatsforrefugees@gmail.com.
“So long as there are heads that should be lined, then I assume I’ll hold doing it till I can’t,” Chan stated.
