As a student at Texas A&M, it can be challenging to balance schoolwork and a personal life all while trying to adhere to the Aggie Core Values. But by combining crafting with service, one organization has found an equilibrium.
With a mission to help people of Bryan-College Station through their craft, social media officer and biomedical engineering sophomore Maggie Orscheln said the students in Aggie Knitting, Crafting, and More, or AKCAM, combine fiber crafts and Selfless Service to aid the community by sharing their creations. The AKCAM mission statement reads as follows:
“Making the world a warmer place one stitch at a time by using knitting and crafting to make scarves, blankets and other crafty products to share with the community.”
Although the club has a focus on crafts like knitting and crochet, the skills aren’t a requirement to join. AKCAM is always accepting new members and accepts people of any skill level, even offering to teach those who have little to no experience. The club only requires members to pay dues for an active member status and participate in one of their service projects, according to Orscheln.
“I’ve definitely taught people who have never held a piece of yarn in their life,” Orscheln said. “You don’t need experience, just the desire to learn. … Usually we have a teaching team, so people that are more experienced will volunteer to help teach us, and then we’ll start with basic stitches.”
As for what AKCAM makes, almost anything is possible. President and animal science senior Lauren Ameigh said club members create anything from clothes to plushies and keychains. As long as members have time and materials, they can make anything they want.
“We can make anything, almost,” Armeigh said. “We have members right now working on sweaters. I’ve knitted a sock or two during a meeting. During our personal project time, we can make anything that we want … and our service project is, right now we are crocheting heart keychains.”
AKCAM does more than just personal projects, though. Former president and biomedical science graduate student Elizabeth Bono personally helped in organizing one of the club’s service projects, putting their members’ skills toward a good cause.
“My big thing that I’m super proud of is that I was able to organize donations with Baylor Scott & White Hospital to create and then donate fidget blankets for Alzheimer’s patients,” Bono said. “That was really awesome. I feel like that had a big contribution to the community because we donated the first year and then came back the second year, and the person I was organizing it with was like, ‘Oh my gosh, they use it all the time,’ so that felt really nice.”
Besides their usual knitting and crafting, social events are another activity AKCAM hosts for its members.
“We try to have a social once a month, but most of our socials we end up devolving into sitting around coffee and crocheting and talking,” Ameigh said. “ … But we do have a special social every semester that tends to step away from it, that is our active member social. It’s a way we reward our members who participate.”
With the members’ talent for making practical crafts continuing to positively impact the community, Bono said the group has become a one-of-a-kind organization.
“We’re the only club of our kind on campus,” Bono said. “ … I think it’s really hard in college to keep up with a lot of your hobbies that you really love, so it gives a space for people to continue doing their art projects or their crochet and knitting projects and not feel guilty.”
Crafting, especially fiber crafts, can be a challenge. However, the end products are very rewarding, and the crafts hold a special place in people’s hearts. Ameigh picked up the skill from her bisabuela, her great grandmother, and she continues to carry her hook in hand to use it to help those in her community.
“I come from a very large Puerto Rican family, and my matriarch, my bisabuela, she crocheted, and she was a master at it, and out of all of my cousins, out of all of her grandchildren, great grandchildren, I am the only one who picked up the hook,” Ameigh said. “She passed when I was in high school, and when we drove to the funeral we had to rent a U-Haul trailer to put behind the truck to bring all of her materials back to Texas because she left them all to me. The crochet hook in my backpack is hers.”
