Michelle Christensen is about a month away from one of her favorite days of the year. A neat wall of boxes lines her family’s modest one-stall garage on Valders Avenue in Golden Valley, labeled “jackets,” “scarves” and “long johns.” Every January, Christensen and a horde of volunteers “scarf-bomb” donated cold-weather gear on the trees, shrubs and chain-link fences of Loring and Kellogg parks to help nearby homeless populations weather the Minnesota winter.
This year has been a challenge to plan, even for the self-described “Type-A” logistics-minded Christensen. She leafs through a packet of color-coded charts that serves as her planning so far, and warrants that planning the annual scarf-bomb in a pandemic is tough, but necessary.
“The need this year is tremendous. I say that every year, but this year, because of COVID and people losing jobs, and the world kind of spinning in the direction that it is, there’s a lot, a lot of need,” Christensen said.
There has been an increase in families living at the local homeless encampments she visits, and when she brings food to them, she often runs out. For those who do turn to social services, she has found that resources have gone from limited to scant.
For every person that does seek out assistance, there is another who does not. In Christensen’s experience, this is due to distrust, mental illness or addiction. In homeless families, parents may fear that if the state gets involved, their mental health or addiction issues will cause their children to be taken from them.
“So, they exist in and around these parks, even in the winter,” she said.
Volunteers prepare to depart for the 2020 Scarf Bomb.
One Good Deed
The scarf-bomb is one of the events her volunteer group, One Good Deed, is responsible for every year. Under the name, she has also helped plant Little Free Libraries and kindness rocks all around the metro.
The first iteration of the One Good Deed featured Christensen and a few Hopkins School District moms that she didn’t want to lose touch with after the graduation of their daughters. Their first project was in 2016, when they made four Little Free Libraries. Eager for more, Christenson turned the four libraries into 25 within the year, and later to 45.
She started a Facebook page to organize people who were interested in volunteering. Today, the group has nearly 500 followers.
The scarf-bomb event is pretty self-contained. Christensen notifies nearby shelters in advance to make sure gear gets taken quickly, and there is often no trace of the gear 72 hours later. She has yet to deal with park police.
Last year, donations filled 150 boxes. This year, Christensen is collecting all new items. She has two donation bins set out at her front door and is emphasizing monetary donations to ensure the items have passed among as few hands as possible. She has many superstore trips planned in the next few weeks and a dedicated posse of shoppers who routinely scour stores for deals.
Christenson said it is a good idea to buy winter gear donations in larger sizes because layering is important in the homeless community: “They can’t leave anything behind, or it’ll get stolen, so I buy XXL and XL only.”
For the children’s items specifically, she tends to splurge.
“Kids don’t deserve to be homeless, it’s horrible. So I buy them the cute boots, the sparkles, the poms …” she said. “If I’m going to spend money, it’s going to be on the kids.”
Michelle Christensen stands among boxes of donated winter gear in her Golden Valley home with a plarn bedroll: an insulated mat made of plastic bags and yarn.
‘Ripples’ of kindness
If One Good Deed has a singular goal, it is to remind people how good it feels to be kind, and how contagious the feeling can be.
“I tell my group, this is a ripple of kindness, and from it, there’s going to be continuing waves going forward,” she said.
Christensen sees evidence of the ripples shifting to waves all the time. From the first scarf-bomb event, all of the supplies, time, and transportation have been donated, down to the printed tags attached to each item that says “Take me! I’m not lost, I’m yours.”
The first time she reserved a coach bus to transport volunteers, she was sheepish because of the cost and apologized to her donors for the unexpected expense. By the end of the day, a donor had replied with an emailed receipt: The bill had been paid in full.
She recalled a pre-pandemic time when she was painting kindness rocks with Sunday School children. She gave each child two rocks and said they could keep them if they wished, or give one or two. Surprisingly, most of the children gave up both rocks or made a point of giving her “their favorite one.”
She said a ripple of kindness isn’t felt only through dramatic gestures. Ripples can even be carried on unconsciously: If you’re feeling good, you might open the door for someone else or communicate more empathetically.
“Because you’re having a good day, two or three more people may be touched just because you’re being pleasant,” she said. “That to me is the ripple that I’m talking about. So, if I can just plunk my body into a situation and start making ripples, I’ll do it and go first every single time.”
Scarves, gloves and blankets are set out on a park bench for a scarf bomb event.
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