The Mays Landing Michaels store has been running a community project, benefiting local senior citizens and gifting them with handmade blankets. The store’s regular customers have knit and crocheted 29 blankets, which will be given to residents of Woodview Estates, a senior living facility located in Mays Landing.
Michaels Craft Store is a well-known corporation that has been in operation for 53 years now. Today, the company operates over 1,300 stores across 49 U.S. states and Canada, making it a massive corporation. Due to its size, it has the ability to make a change in so many different communities.
The company’s corporate offices reached out to each storefront, encouraging the managers and workers there to get involved within their individual communities and create community projects that spark togetherness and inspire others.
The Michaels located in Mays Landing did just that with the help of manager Jessica Bertoldi, cashier Chriss Worthington and the whole crew that works there.
Worthington, who works a few mornings behind the register, gets to talk to the regulars that come in, and she sees a lot of knitters and crocheters each day. She shared how they talk about knitting for others and making crafts for their community already, so it sparked the idea in her head.
Worthington and Bertoldi got together and decided to utilize the knitting popularity at their store to make a community project of creating blankets for senior members in the Mays Landing community.
With the help of all the workers in their store, they made flyers urging anyone who wanted to join in the initiative to create a lap blanket that would then be donated to Woodview Estates.
Whenever customers made a blanket and came in to drop it off, they would receive a ticket to get a $50 gift card to Michaels, though just one would be given out.
While the gift card was a great incentive, maybe these customers had simply wanted to be a part of this project and give back to the community just because.
“I feel like if you give someone an opportunity to do something nice, people are usually interested. Everyone wants to do something for somebody and if we just put it in their lap, I thought they would do it,” Worthington said. “We got 29 blankets total, which I thought, for our first attempt, was great. It was also really fun to talk with all the customers about it.”
Worthington also shared how excited Woodview Estates was to be the recipient of this initiative. She had warned them that with this being their first community outreach, they might just get one or two blankets made. Those in charge had said they would be happy with any amount, and couldn’t wait to see what was made and brought over for their residents.
Now, the Mays Landing Michaels store, after the success of their first community project, hopes to do this again soon. Worthington shared they want to do another knitting project similar to this, around Christmas time, but maybe knitting scarves.
“I think this gave people an opportunity to give to someone else, which always makes everyone feel good that they helped other people. I’m very excited to bring them over to the Woodview residents,” Worthington said. “All these people did all this work, and now we get to go and hand them out and see their reactions.”
The project showed how a simple idea can bring together a whole community. With 29 handmade blankets going to local seniors, the Mays Landing Michaels team hopes this is just the beginning of more opportunities to give back and bring people together through something they already love to do.
Delaney Crawford is a dynamic entrepreneur with a passion for storytelling and digital marketing. Driven by a desire to empower local businesses, Delaney founded DLC Media, a company dedicated to helping businesses enhance their brand image and thrive online.
