Alison Gurley, Resident Advocate at DASH, recently lead a knitting program with DASH residents. The pictures are just a portion of the yarn that was donated by DC business Looped Yarn Works. We are incredibly grateful for their generosity! Here Alison talks about how she came to DASH and the project:

I am originally from Massachusetts, but I went to a small college out in Minnesota called St. Olaf College. I graduated in 2010 and decided that I needed to be somewhere warmer so I moved to DC. I am a resident advocate. A resident advocate at DASH does pretty much what the title suggests, we advocate for our residents and partner with them throughout their stay at our transitional housing program. During their two years here, advocates work to support residents are they work toward their goals, seek permanent housing, connect to community resources and etc. Advocates are available to share their knowledge of community organizations and resources, government programs and benefits and to generally provide  a listening ear. We also plan much of the programming that occurs within our Cornerstone housing facility.

I first got involved with DASH as a full-time volunteer through Lutheran Volunteer Corps (kind of like AmeriCorps) in March 2011. I had been working at an organization doing advocacy work on federal immigration and refugee legislation, and I wanted a chance to do direct service work. DASH had an opening for a Resident Advocate so I applied to work here through Lutheran Volunteer Corps. DASH hired me as a full-time advocate outside of Lutheran Volunteer Corps in August 2011.

A number of residents had expressed interest in starting a knitting/crocheting group. One resident in particular was interesting in teaching crochet. For me, knitting is an important stress relieving activity, I find it wonderful and satisfying to create a tangible product. I thought it was a wonderful idea for DASH to help the women take some time for themselves and build community together. One of the founders of Looped Yarn Works used to work with a DASH staff member at Our Place, DC, so I got in touch with her to see if we could have supplies donated to make the group possible. Looped does drives quarterly to help make knitting/crochet groups possible for a number of non-profits.

As a resident advocate, my first priority is to build a relationship of mutual respect with the women I work with at DASH. The most important thing to me is that we approach the work we do together as a partnership. I want to make sure that the women have self-determination in the goals that they set for themselves and the life they build for themselves while they are in our Cornerstone program.

Knitting is a great way to build community. When your hands are busy, it’s amazing what will come out of your mouth! Building a strong community among the residents in our Cornerstone program is very important to DASH. Survivors are the people best equipped to help other survivors, we always want our residents to be able to turn to one another for support, as well as to staff.