Karuna Tarafdar, a senior at Newton South High School, learned to crochet in middle school from a friend. What started as a craft became a point of community connection.
In the summer of 2024, Tarafdar founded Crochet for Our Community as a summer program for tweens and teens at the Newton Free Library. The program just completed its third summer there and has expanded to Newton South High School, becoming a student-run club with weekly meetings.
Over the last three years, the club has made four donations of their creations to various community organizations and sold another batch at a local art sale. This August, Tarafdar brought a donation of 88 crocheted roses—all handmade by students through the summer program and club at the high school—in vases to the Cambridge Breast Center at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), where they were then distributed to patients.
“From what I’ve heard you can’t replicate crocheting,” Tarafdar said. “So these roses, you wouldn’t be able to make them with a machine. It would have to be made by a person.”
Karuna Tarafdar, left, founder of Crochet for Our Community, and Amelia Fricano, right, present an introduction to the club during Crochet for Our Community’s first meeting. Photo by Irene Yimmongkol
Tarafdar said that keeping donations local was initially a decision to start simple, and that “we’re all kind of connected in the Boston area.” Tarafdar had visited CHA when she broke her ankle, and the doctor who treated her was the original point of contact when it came time to connect with potential places to donate the most recent collection of crocheted pieces.
Melisa Difusco, practice manager, orthopedics at CHA, received these donations from Tarafdar and the club. Though donations happen frequently, Difusco said, there are not as many to CHA—a smaller, public health system —than to some of the larger hospitals in the Boston area. Upon hearing the idea, Difusco said she immediately thought it would be great for patients and was struck by Tarafdar being so thoughtful at such a young age.
Before CHA, Crochet for Our Community donated more than a dozen crochet bunnies to Brookview House in Boston and another 13 to the Plain Jaine Foundation in Wellesley, as well as more than 30 crochet beanies to Heading Home in Boston.
For Tarafdar, the donation element was a keystone of the club’s creation. She wanted to give middle schoolers who were learning to crochet a clear goal and unify them in working toward it. Initially, she admitted, there was a learning curve in teaching younger kids the craft, but it became one of the more inspiring parts of the program. She recalled stories of her student leadership team—some of whom are in the grades below her, giving her confidence in “the next generation of crocheters”—interacting carefully with the middle schoolers at the Newton Free Library summer program, helping them every step of the way as they learned a new skill.
Sophie Lu makes a yarn bracelet for Karuna Tarafdar during the first meeting of Crochet for Our Community, a summer program founded by Tarafdar. Photo by Irene Yimmongkol
Megan Coffey, assistant supervisor of youth services for teens and tweens at the Newton Free Library, has been helping Tarafdar organize the summer program for three years and described it as “spectacular.”
“I think that at its core, a library is meant to help students and help anybody of any age learn something new,” Coffey said. “And it might not be like you’re going to become an expert on the first day, but if it just sparks some little kernel of ‘oh I like this,’ then that’s really cool.”
Amelia Fricano, a senior at Newton South and vice president of Crochet for Our Community, joined her sophomore year and has attended most of the weekly meetings since she joined. The meetings, beyond evoking the feeling of giving back to the community, are “just a really nice place to come to every week,” she said.
Tarafdar said she appreciates the organization not just for the creations but for the connection it inspires among club and community members. She estimated that around 20 people come to each meeting during the school year.
“Even if I had a horrible math test, I could come back to crochet for our community,” Tarafdar said. “And we’re all crocheting together and laughing … it’s such a relaxing time, and I really appreciate having that.”
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This story is part of a partnership between the Newton Beacon and the Boston University Department of Journalism’s Newsroom program.