Parvin Rasul, co-owner of the Waiting Room Café, has loomed and donated 150 children’s toques to the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation to celebrate Canada 150.
“I feel I’ve done something, and not for one child…this is for 150 babies,” said Rasul.
It took Rasul a total of 500 hours over three months to complete all 150 toques.
Rasul has always wanted to sew or craft things for children but never has as she and her husband Al were unable to have children of their own.
“I couldn’t do because we could not have children and that was the reason why I decided on doing something for the babies,” she said.
She was inspired to embark on the project of looming toques, and fulfilling her long time desire, by the knitting group that meets at her café.
Rasul said that she had also been looking for a way to volunteer and give back as an individual instead of as a business owner.
“As a business owner, we donate and volunteer so much in the community that I was thinking of doing something personal and something close to my heart,” she said.
She started out by trying to learn to knit.
“I have never knitted in my life,” said Rasul, “they tried to make me do a scarf but that scarf turned out to be a skirt.”
While Rasul decided to give up on knitting she discovered looming and was taught how to make the toques.
“It really caught me and I’m like ‘maybe I should try this’,” she said.
She borrowed a loom and started out making one toque, then two then three. Rasul decided to buy her own loom and the project took off.
At first, she kept her idea of 150 toques to donate by Canada day a secret while she learned how long it took to make a toque and whether she could actually make 150 of them in the time available.
“Come April I finished 50 toques,” she said, “It took me a whole month to do 50 toques.”
“May I did another 50 so that’s when I started to tell people that this is what I was doing.”
Once she started telling people what she was doing everyone from friends to customers at the Waiting Room Café were supportive of the project she said.
“The majority of them were very happy,” said Rasul, “they always encouraged me.”
Once she had 100 toques completed she contacted both the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation and Ronald MacDonald House to see if either organization would accept the completed toques.
“They both were willing to take the donations,” said Rasul.
“They were both really excited,” she said.
She decided to donate the 150 toques to the hospital but is planning, after a taking a break for a couple of months, to get back to work and loom toques for Ronald MacDonald House as well.
Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation’s Utah Hawley accepted the donation from Rasul on behalf of the foundation June 30.
“Gift and in-kind donations bring joy and comfort to families here in the hospital,” she said.
Now that the foundation has the toques they will start distributing to them to patients as they are needed.
Rasul said that it was very emotional to be at the hospital to deliver the toques.
“I feel very satisfied and I feel that I did what I couldn’t do a long time ago,” said Rasul.
