
“People are so encouraging, and offer such positive reinforcement.”
Meet Kent. For the last several months, Kent has been a regular at the knitting group Project Knitwell co-sponsors with the Cancer Resource Center at Virginia Hospital Center (VHC). Barb, one of our volunteers and a good friend of Kent’s, had taught him to knit several months earlier. Barb thought Kent, who had recently finished cancer treatment, would enjoy knitting with the VHC group. And she was right! Kent says: “People are so encouraging, and offer such positive reinforcement,” and he likes seeing what others are working on. “I’m the only guy in the group, but they don’t make me feel like I’m the only guy!”
As much as he enjoys the group setting, Kent also enjoys the “zen” of knitting by himself – in a comfortable chair with classical music playing. He says: “I like that in knitting there is an end result – a beginning, middle and an end. In my working life, I had a job where there was almost never a sense of completion.” Kent enjoys giving his knitted items as gifts and feels good knowing that the recipient is kept warm and protected from the cold by something that he made.