Help Us Build 1,000 Sock Monkeys!

Welcome to The Bellingham Sock Monkeys, a Comfort Kids Project!

"It’s 2:00am and there is chaos happening in my house, this isn’t a new occurrence but tonight something is different. I am being carried from my bed and placed into a strange car and now a very kind lady is driving me somewhere into the darkness of the night. I’m not sure where I am going, she just told me I am going somewhere safe. The journey begins in many ways for children about to enter the foster care system but one singular commonality happens for all, their life turns in a new direction."

A few years back, I heard this scenario above while attending a lunchtime chat, discussing an upcoming event on the Western Washington University’s campus located here in Bellingham, WA. They proposed to have students on campus attend a workshop to learn how to sew a sock monkey and donate these hand crafted monkeys to displaced children as part of a larger scale program looking at the human aspect of sustainability. I decided immediately that I wanted to help by making hand knitted clothes for these monkeys. I had no interest in actually making the monkeys because after all I had absolutely no clue how to sew. Several others joined me in this venture, however, we realized if we wanted to have these clothes ready for this workshop we were going to need to make a few monkey “models”. Thus began the journey of turning my home into a monkey factory and my husband’s pool table buried under a sea of sock monkey parts!

We are currently at a sock monkey population of 300 with a goal of sewing 1000! This GoFundMe campaign is to purchase the supplies necessary to build the remaining 700 monkeys. Through strategic planning and careful coupon clipping, we have been able to lower the cost of creation per monkey to $4.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated and even a simple social media share is more than enough to progress the cause!

- June Fraser Thistle