Third Piece, a Newton-based knitting company, is offering a Mother’s Day gift set of a how-to-knit kit and a card that will benefit Women’s Lunch Place, a Boston day shelter for women experiencing hunger and homelessness.
Every year, Women’s Lunch Place sells Mother’s Day cards, designed by one of their guests, to help raise money to support their mission.
Third Place owner Kristen Lambert thought combining these cards with her popular kits that contain everything you need to learn how to knit would be a good fit.
“I wanted to create a thoughtful gift for Mother’s Day, and offer something that could give back,” said Lambert, who has been at her 320 Nevada St. location for two years.
Each card provides a week’s worth of food for a woman visiting the shelter.
Women’s Lunch Place serves about 250 women a day, many of whom rely on the center for most of their meals. WLP provides breakfast, lunch, and dinner six days a week, and breakfast and lunch are cooked from scratch. In 2023, they served 113,430 meals.
Lambert has been teaching knitting classes since 2016, with a particular focus on mindfulness.
“Knitting is very therapeutic,” she said.
Her website notes that knitting can lower cortisol levels, a stress hormone, as well as quieting racing thoughts. Lambert hopes that moms who receive the gift will appreciate knowing a woman in need was helped while also receiving something that can help them.
Each learn-to-knit kit contains yarn, needles, videos on how to knit, and two patterns, and can be purchased from her website. The enclosed card has flowers on the front and a short biography of the artist.
This year’s artist is a woman named Marlo who grew up in foster care and has been using the WLP employment resources to help look for a better job.
“I am always inspired by everyday life. I think life is beautiful and I want to turn that into a lasting, lingering feeling. You can do that through art because art is timeless,” she said about her design.
You can support Women’s Lunch Place directly here; they also take in-kind donations.