PRIDE — The Crafting for a Cause Club in East Baton Rouge Parish is weaving yarn into warmth for the holidays and beyond.

Every Thursday afternoon at the Pride-Chaneyville Branch Library, you can follow the laughter and chatter of the crocheting club that started 13 years ago.

Since 2011, they've made blankets for nursing homes, chemotherapy patients, veterans, and baby booties for new moms and neonatal intensive care units. The group has also crocheted hats for students.

The group made about 300 hats one year for kids at a school in conjunction with WBRZ's Pat's Coats for Kids coat giveaway.

It's become more than just a social gathering for Kay Lavergne.

"It adds to your life," she said as she sat just outside the room where seven other ladies crocheted blankets and hats. "It adds joy. We can laugh, and we can cry with one another, and nobody is judged."

The work of the women in the small community of Pride made its way across the world to Nepal. A doctor from Pride was working at a leprosy mission hospital in Nepal. After some discussion, the crocheting club made hats for the doctor to deliver to the patients to help them through the harsh winter.

Crafting for a Cause Founder Linden Langberg explained many of the patients have no family to help them.

"If the mother gets leprosy, they'll throw her out...literally throw her out and the children because it's a stigma," Langberg said.

Lavergne recalls seeing the photo of a Nepal leprosy patient wearing a pink hat she made.

"I thought here's this man who has leprosy, and he's so excited about getting a hat. I thought: do I know any man who would be excited about getting this pink hat? You realize how you touch the hearts of, you touch people through a little bit of your time," Lavergne added.

For their 2024 Christmas project, the club donated boxes of hats to the St. Vincent De Paul homeless shelter.

The club plans to continue to share their priceless, creative gifts with strangers for years to come.

"You can't put a price on your time," Lavergne said.

The club uses donated yarn. You can drop off clean, unused yarn at the main East Baton Rouge Library on Goodwood Boulevard or the Pride-Chaneyville branch. Tell them it's for the Crafting for a Cause club.

Watch the story on WBRZ+ at 10 p.m.