Using nearly every moment of her free time over a half century, 87-year-old Hsueh Lo-sha (薛羅紗) has knitted more than 1,500 sweaters for Taiwanese children in need, saying only: “I want children to stay warm.”
As a child in Kinmen County, Hsueh quickly picked up how to sew and knit from her mother, who worked as a tailor.
Worried that particularly susceptible children would not have enough warm clothing during Kinmen’s cold winters, Hsueh knitted them sweaters in her free time, distributing them annually before the temperature dropped.
Photo: Huang Shu-li, Taipei Times
Even after her husband moved the family to Hualien County for a teaching position, Hsueh continued the tradition.
After the 921 Earthquake hit, Hsueh reached out to Caoling Village (草嶺) in Yunlin County to ask if any children needed sweaters, former village warden Su Chun-hao (蘇俊豪) said.
“I thought she was going to buy some, but the 20 to 30 sweaters we received were all handmade,” he said.
Photo: Huang Shu-li, Taipei Times
Su said he was deeply moved by her story, as she at that point had already been knitting sweaters for children in need for more than 30 years.
Over the 20 years since, she has continued gifting 30 to 40 sweaters every year, adding up to at least 1,500 in total, Su said.
Hsueh still takes advantage of every free moment to knit.
“As long as my hands can move and my eyes can see, I will keep knitting,” she said.
“I hope that the children who wore my sweaters will one day see or remember them and think that they could also knit a sweater for a needy child to keep them warm in the winter,” she added.
This year, Hsueh’s daughter has joined her in the project, Su said, adding that they have already made more than 100 sweaters for children in Caoling and Chiayi County’s Laiji Village (來吉).
Su said that if anyone knows a child in need of a sweater, they can contact him.
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