Writing Sample #3

Soror Valoria Simpson: “Sewing” Seeds Of SERVICE Into The Community

Published January 1, 2021

Soror Valoria Simpson put her enduring talents to great use just in time for this year’s holiday season. A gifted machine knitter for over 37 years, she took on the self-assigned task of knitting eleven sweaters for local children in need, in the spirit of Christmas.

As President and Founder of the Hillside LK150 Machine Knitting Club of Hillside, IL, Soror Simpson took on this ambitious goal as a result of a conversation with Jean Powell, a fellow member of the Hillside, IL knitting club. It was during this exchange that Soror Simpson learned that Powell sits on the board of a neighboring local organization, Hephzibah Children’s Association – Oak Park Illinois’ oldest social service agency. This multifaceted agency, more than a century old, offers “short- and long-term group shelter for abused and neglected children; child welfare and family services; foster care and adoption programs; and award-winning daycare on a sliding scale for families of all income levels…while preserving the dignity of the children and their families.” (https://www.hephzibahhome.org/who-we-are/)

Currently, twenty-six children are housed at Hephzibah. Due to the advent of COVID-19 this year, the agency was short on gifts to give the children for the holidays. Learning this, Soror Simpson offered to provide as many sweaters as she could personally knit within a less than 3-week timeframe. Without ceasing, Soror Simpson achieved the impressive result of single-handedly producing eleven sweaters – all different colors and patterns – by way of a process called “machine knitting”.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knitting_machine)

According to Soror Simpson, “Machine knitting has been around over 100 years in Europe. At the time, the machines were quite large and took up the space of an entire room. First only men practiced the craft and women were not allowed to use them. Women were hand knitting only and using just 2-4 needles at a time. Now, there are still large ones that vary in size….150-200 needle machines that can simply sit on a desk in front of you”.

A trailblazer in her own right, Soror Simpson has been the Founder and President of the Hillside, Illinois-based club since February 2011. She is quite proud of the 56-member organization that includes the membership of people from all backgrounds – men and women alike – who travel from as far as Wisconsin and Indiana to meet every fourth Saturday of the month in the western suburbs of Chicago, IL.

When asked what made her start the club, “I saw a need for people to learn. It’s one thing to show and tell the process of machine knitting, but when you have hands-on instruction on how to do different projects, then you can learn the craft. You can see the yarn actually come alive in your hands and see it turn into something…hats, gloves, scarves, sweaters and more. It’s a beautiful craft. It’s soothing and therapeutic”.

This year, her knitting club also donated over $500 worth of groceries to the Society of St. Vincent DePaul Church Food Pantry located in Hillside, IL. Due to the onset of the global pandemic this year, Soror Simpson plans to have the group reconvene next year via the online meeting platform, Zoom. “I look forward to using Zoom to move forward in our group’s lesson plans,” said Simpson, “I’ll be able to reach more people than I had room for in the community center where we would generally meet. Until then, I’m thankful for being able to be of help to this group [Hephzibah Children’s Association] for the first time ever this year, and quite possibly be of further help the next”. Soror Simpson is a true testament of answering the call of our founding principle of SERVICE. The community shall surely reap the benefits of the precious seeds she has “sewn”.